Too Much Turnabout :: An Accompanying Piece to The Fatal Turnabout
by Shikola Krasno . Melody Canta
Summary: Companion Piece to The Fatal Turnabout. Our heroes might have conquered Dahlia's spirit world, but that doesn't mean that they're completely free of it yet. Some might relive their nightmares, some may panic over what could have been, but with the help of group therapy, they're determined to beat the evil Hawthorne sister's plot once and for all.
1. ES :: The Tragedy

**Too Much Turnabout :: An Accompanying Story to The Fatal Turnabout**

**A Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Story**

All characters are property of CAPCOM, plot influenced by Hudson Soft. We don't own much of this, but we do own the crazy ideas in this one. Pretty much all of the crazy ideas in this one.

FULL SUMMARY :: Companion Piece to The Fatal Turnabout. Our heroes might have conquered Dahlia's spirit world, but that doesn't mean that they're completely free of it yet. Some might relive their nightmares, some may panic over what could have been, but with the help of group therapy, they're determined to beat the evil Hawthorne sister's plot once and for all.

Rated T for intense situations, violence, suicide, death, general horror, and this time, bad humor.

**Author's Note ::** Sorry that this took so long, guys! We've got a few chapters almost ready for your general consumption, but here's the first! As a warning, this piece is all us; very little of it has been taken from the original games. Some of it will be light and humorous, some of it is darker than the original story, and some of it is plain crack that we probably thought of after too much alcohol and sugar.

Once again, Shikola and I are sharing these. She'll be writing the Extra Scenes, which are a canon part of the original fanfiction. These have been worked and reworked so that the timeline works, they just couldn't be written in because we couldn't fit everyone's experiences into the original piece. My parts are the Alternate Scenarios, which is what could have happened in the original fanfiction and didn't. I'll leave a chapter reference in case you want to reread what did happen, but, as a mild spoiler, they probably lived through it in the original. Just in case you were trying to guess what these are about. Finally, we'll have chapters of General Craziness, which both Shikola and I will write, which is the weird stuff that we talked about happening but couldn't figure out how to make it realistic. It'll be fun.

Thanks for joining us again on this, and hopefully, you'll enjoy these!

First up, Shikola with what happened to Athena in the abyss.

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><p><strong>AN :: Suicide trigger warning. **

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><p><strong>Extra Scene :: The Tragedy<strong>

Athena had been really excited to get everyone together. She'd only had one chance to meet Maya before and it was hardly the fun, casual meeting she'd wanted. This was the woman that her boss still needed to marry, after all! And while the strange text message had been creepy, it only inspired Athena to go all out and make a big party out of Maya's arrival. That being said, a party needed guests, so with all the courage that she could muster, she dialed the number and hit send. It rang twice before he answered.

"_What do you need?_"

Athena bit her lip and mumbled, "Well, I don't really _need_ anything. I just. . . I was hoping that. . . Well you know how. . . Um. . ." She had wanted to invite Simon since the party was first established, but her nerves were getting the better of her, so she went out to rent the horror movies first in order to work up the courage. Now that she had him on the phone, however, all of that confidence was gone.

"_If you don't need anything, I have better things to do, Cykes-dono._"

His response cut her like his blade would have. Disheartened, she sighed and told him. "It's nothing important, I guess. It's just that Maya's going to be in town this weekend so I thought that. . . maybe. . ."

"_Out with it, woman, I'm busy!_"

"You know what? Never mind. It's no big deal anyways. I guess I'll see you in court next time." She hung up before he could say anything else and leaned against the bus stop in defeat.

It didn't make any sense. When it came to a case, she could do more than just talk to him! She could turn the whole situation around on him and unhinge what few facts he would depend on as she presented evidence that he hadn't considered as closely as he thought he had. And yet, when it came to asking him to do anything outside of the courtroom, she always found herself completely tongue-tied.

Was it because he was her mother's apprentice?

She figured that had to be it. She had dedicated the majority of her life to becoming strong enough to save him from taking the blame for her mother's murder, so she must have put him on a pedestal or something. She couldn't think of any other explanation.

It was only when the bus arrived that she realized she'd used all of her money for bus fare on popcorn and movies. She begrudgingly waved the driver off and picked up her bags. "I can always use a good run!" she assured herself. "Heads up, bus! I'll beat you there with time to spare!"

She sprinted after it, her arms pumping as her legs sent her flying along the sidewalk. No matter how fast she ran, the bus was still too far ahead of her. Fueled by determination and pure adrenaline, she decided to take a few shortcuts. Sneaking through narrow alleys and a couple residential neighborhoods, she managed to reach the building where the agency was located just as the bus pulled away from the stop.

"It was a good race!" she yelled when she caught her breath. "But next time I'll definitely beat you!"

"What are you trying to beat this time?"

Athena was so caught up in her own little world that she hadn't even noticed who the bus had left behind. "Maya! You're here!" Athena threw her arms around the startled spirit medium and her bags slammed into Maya's back. "Oops! Sorry!"

"SUCH A KLUTZ. . ."

"Gah! Widget!" Athena hastily stifled her necklace but Maya was already laughing.

"You sure seem lively." The spirit medium took a second to rub her back before asking, "What did you have in those bags anyways, bricks?"

Athena lifted the bags up higher with ease and explained, "I live at a small apartment so I didn't have anything fancy, but I remembered that you liked hamburgers, and I know there's a little grill that Mr. Wright has buried somewhere . . . "

Maya's eyes sparkled and her mouth watered slightly—an odd look for a grown woman in such old fashioned clothes—as she muttered, "Buuuuuuurgeeeeeeeers!"

Athena smiled, glad to know that she had done right by her mentor's old assistant, and added, "I also bought a ton of popcorn and rented a few scary movies since the creepy text message really put me in the mood for a night of terrors!"

"Always ready to take on evil, aren't you, Athena?" Maya asked with a wink. Athena recognized the slightly fanatic look in her eye as she said, "Just like the Steel Samurai! That's who I want to be like when I grow up."

"Maya, you do realize you're a grown woman, right?" Phoenix had come down to the main entrance of the building, giving them a puzzled look as soon as he saw them. "Shouldn't you be setting an example for kids like Athena?"

"I am _not_ some snot-nosed kid!" Athena barked.

"Are you calling me immature?" Maya puffed up her cheeks as she scowled at Phoenix.

"Whoa, whoa! Don't shoot the messenger! I just came down to let you guys in!" His eyes found Athena's bags and his shoulders slumped. "Athena, you know I said _small_ get-together, right? This isn't a party."

Trucy squeezed around her father and exclaimed, "Oh good, you brought snacks with the movies! Larry and I were starting to worry that we'd be stuck with the junk Daddy keeps in the pantry."

Phoenix sighed and led the girls up to to his agency/apartment. Inside, they found Larry showing off a strange black bead to Apollo. "Oh good, you're already here!"

"Yeah. I'm here." Apollo didn't seem nearly as excited as Trucy and Larry were.

"Polly was the chaperone for my class field trip today!" Trucy explained. "We got to go to Nine-Tails Vale and watch a match between Mister Tenma as Tenma-Taro and Polly as the Nine Tailed Fox."

Athena gasped. "You've got to send me pictures!"

Trucy happily sent a picture of Apollo's legendary match with her phone and Athena thought that it was so funny, she just had to set it as her background.

"Oh, by the way, I brought movies, popcorn, and—"

"BURGEEERS!" Maya cheered happily. "Can we make them, Nick? Please please please please!"

Phoenix sighed, certain that something would go wrong, but told her, "If you guys can find the grill, then I guess you can make some near an open window."

"Oh, thank god! We were starting to worry that we'd be stuck with Nick's empty cupboards!" Larry exclaimed.

"Hey, I wasn't planning a party!" Phoenix reminded him.

Apollo took Athena's bags only to notice her movie selection. He pulled out the first DVD he saw and brought up, "One Missed Call? Seriously? Are you sure that's a good idea with the weird text message? I don't think we'll be able to sleep tonight if we get much more on freaky phone stuff."

"Who needs sleep?" Athena exclaimed as she tucked away her phone. "And don't worry! I'll fight off any ghosts that think to come this way!"

Apollo shook his head and mumbled, "You've really got it all figured out, don't you?"

"Absolutely!" She put her left hand on her right bicep as she winked at him. "You can leave everything to me! Now where's that little grill?"

After unearthing the smallest grill anyone had ever seen, the disgruntled defense attorney allowed his guests to attempt to cook burgers by an open window. First, Maya burned a few patties, and then Athena managed to create a small fireball that singed the curtains. When Phoenix wasn't paying attention, Larry got around to the little grill and managed to burn his eyebrows off. Finally, Apollo was put on grill duty and burgers patties came off two at a time. Unfortunately, with Maya's appetite, she could eat two patties at a time.

When everyone was good and full, Athena still chose to make plenty of popcorn. Phoenix had chickened out and decided to retire early after that. Once he was gone and everyone had claimed their spots around the common room, Athena put in One Missed Call and sat back down in the smaller chair that she had valiantly won in a staring contest against Apollo (who now sat next to it in defeat). She hit the play button on the remote and the opening credits started.

Athena checked her phone briefly and saw that she had, coincidentally, missed a call from Blackquill. Part of her wanted to quickly listen to the message and call him back, but the other part of her was upset with him for having been so rude earlier, so she decided to ignore her phone and just go on enjoying the party.

All of the sudden, she felt inexplicably tired. It was like a sudden dizzy spell kicked in and she just couldn't shake it. She tried to look at the others to alert them to her ailment, but Apollo's body just collapsed against the chair, Larry's face hit the floor like a rock, and Maya was sprawled out on the couch already asleep. _Just what's happening to me?_ she wondered as she quickly lost consciousness.

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><p>Athena woke up on a cold metal table in a very dark place, dazed and confused. "Must have been out for a while," she mumbled as she pulled out her cell phone to check the time. The clock read 0:01 which meant that it was just after midnight. That at least explained the darkness, but not the table.<p>

She swung her legs over the side and stood up only to feel disoriented since she couldn't see much of anything around her. "Creepy much?" Without much to go on, Athena turned on her phone again and used it as a makeshift flashlight. From what she could tell, she was in a room much like the one where her mother used to work, though there weren't as many mechanical things, so it might not have been for robots. Still, being in a room that resembled the place where her mother had been killed was extremely unsettling.

"Oh! Simon!" Athena had almost forgotten that he had left her a message, but thinking about her mother brought him to mind. She looked at her phone and found that there was still one missed call from him and one message waiting for her. She opened her answering machine and held her phone to her ear to listen to what he had to say.

_"Hello, Miss Cykes."_

It wasn't Blackquill's voice that came through the line, but Bobby Fulbright's—or at least the man she had once thought was Bobby Fulbright. Just hearing it made her heart race.

_"I am calling, regrettably, because Blackquill wanted his last message to be given to you."_

That couldn't be right. Why on earth would it be his _last_ message? And why would Fulbright be giving it to her?

_"He wanted me to say thank you for trying to help him and sorry for causing you so much trouble over the years. I can only assume that he meant to apologize for killing your mother."_

"No. He didn't do it," she muttered though it was only a message. "His heart was screaming out in agony when he confessed to that! He didn't kill her!"

_"His seven year sentence was up and his execution was carried out at nine this morning. I'm sorry for not being able to deliver the message to you in person but justice called and I had to answer. I'll be seeing you soon, Miss Cykes."_ CLICK.

Athena's phone slipped from her hand and landed on the table face down, leaving her in the darkness again. She didn't feel like she had the strength to pick it up. "No," she muttered so quietly that she wasn't even certain she'd spoken aloud. "This is a dream. It has to be! Just some horrible nightmare!" She pinched her arm so hard that her nails broke skin and the spot started to bleed. "Come on! You've got to wake up!"

As she stood there pinching her bloody arm, she heard a door slide open and a light flashed right in her face. She shielded her eyes, squinting into the brightness.

"Athena? What are you doing here?"

"Boss?" The light was redirected to her feet and she was able to see the familiar bird-like hair of the famed defense attorney. "Boss!" She threw her arms around him and whimpered. "I don't know what's going on! This can't be real, right? He's alive, right?"

"Slow down, Athena. Who's alive? What happened?"

Athena let go of Phoenix and took a deep breath. "I—I don't know what happened. I don't know how I got here or where here even is. But I had a voice-message on my phone and it was Detective Fulbright telling me that Blackquill was. . . He said that Simon was. . ."

Phoenix put a hand on her shoulder to steady her and assured her, "It's okay. I don't want to alarm you, but we seem to be trapped in some sort of dark spirit world."

Athena stared at him incredulously and he held up his hands. "Hey, I'm just as skeptical as you! But there is one way that I can think of that something like this might be possible, and I'm afraid I already encountered the person behind it all once."

"Sir, you're making less sense than usual," Athena said.

Phoenix slapped his forehead and groaned before saying, "Okay, hear me out. Almost twenty years ago I dated this girl named Dahlia Hawthorne. . ." The old man went on to relay a long and complicated tale of betrayal, murder, family ties, and devious plots that shook Athena to her core. Having said all that he could on the matter, he finally explained, "I think this is all her doing. Remember my magatama?"

"You mean that green bead you start rubbing when you start asking really personal questions?"

Phoenix's eyes went wide for a moment as he muttered, "That's what I look like to other people?" He shook his head and got back on topic. "Erm, yes. It actually holds very strong spiritual power. Larry somehow got his hands on a black magatama, which must have been full of dark spiritual power." He examined Athena and noticed that while her face seemed stoic and attentive, her necklace looked confused. "You're not even following me a little bit, are you?"

Athena shrugged and mumbled, "I'm trying, but it's just so crazy, even for you! I mean, are you even listening to yourself? Spirits? Vengeful ghosts? Men with glowing red visors?"

"Hey, whether or not you believe the spirit stuff, Godot is a real person," he argued. "Look. I want to get out of here just as much as you do. So why don't we just ignore the details and help each other out?"

"Sounds good to me!" Athena decided, determined to help in any way that she could. "Anything to wake up from this! So what's the plan, Boss-man?"

The disgruntled defense attorney sighed, already feeling exhausted by his assistant's enthusiasm. "It's hard to say that there is a plan," he confessed. "I've seen such terrifying things in this abyss and the hospital seems to be the worst of it."

"HOSPITAL? ABYSS? HE'S GONE CUCKOO!" Widget exclaimed in place of Athena.

"I guess you just woke up then," he noted, completely unfazed by Widget's remark. "And you don't have any light so it only makes sense that you don't know. The room that we're in now is the operating room at a creepy abandoned hospital. The rest of the hospital is just as dark and eerie as this room. I'd leave if I could, but I don't have a phone."

Athena tilted her head and brought up, "I have my phone, but I don't see how that helps us get anywhere." She looked behind herself at what was apparently the operating table where she had awakened, and stared at the phone for a moment before reluctantly picking it up. She showed it to him and his jaw dropped in amazement.

"You have your own phone? Did you call it and wind up here? Does it work? Are you sure it's really yours and not just a replica or something?" The questions just kept flying out of his mouth until she couldn't take it anymore.

"I don't know what you're talking about! It's my phone and I have it because I keep it on me!" she snapped, shutting him up. "Why is that so strange?"

Phoenix rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and apologized for being so pesky. "I know that none of this makes any sense, so just go on thinking that it's all a dream, okay?" he suggested. "And since it's a dream, anything should be possible, even the weird stuff that I say, right?"

Athena nodded hesitantly.

"Okay. Well, in this abyss there are two ways to get around. You can either explore the location that you're at by just wandering around, or you can transport to another location by calling a cell phone. Don't just call any number though!" He stopped her just in time since she'd already started dialing. "Geez. You could have let me finish!" He cleared his throat and added, "I highly doubt that two people will be able to transport with same phone at the same time, so if you made a call right now you'd be on your own again. We need to pick a phone number that we both know so that we can follow each other."

"Okay, so why don't we just call Apollo?" she asked.

Phoenix shook his head and explained, "Some numbers are no good here. You'll either not be able to get a hold of them at all or something else might answer and attack you. I've found a few numbers lying around that lead to different places, so we should look for a number in the hospital to avoid any unknown circumstances. Another thing to note is that your phone won't transport with you so you'll have to find the phone that you called or another phone entirely in order to transport again."

"I think I get it," Athena said. "So, let's go looking around for a phone number then!" Athena trudged ahead and Phoenix had little choice but to hurry after her.

"Wait up! There's more to this place that you need to be careful of!" He chased her out to the hall and ran smack into her back. "Athena?"

She could hardly believe what she saw. There was a man at the far end of the hall wearing her mother's old museum jacket and a creepy opera mask over his face. She clenched her hands into fists and bit her lip.

"Athena! You're bleeding!"

Surprised by his statement, she glanced down at the part of her arm that she had pinched before and was shocked to see blood still gushing out. "Oh. I must have pinched a nerve," she told him. She looked back at where the man had been and it was like he had never been there at all. "Did you see that?"

He followed her line of sight down the hall and pointed his flashlight in the same direction but there was nothing unusual. "That's what I was trying to tell you. There are other people around here. Most of them aren't friendly."

Athena nodded slowly and took a step in the direction that the mysterious man had gone only to have her mentor grab her wrist and pull her back into the operating room. "Wait! Shouldn't we be going out and exploring?"

"Not until after I treat that wound," he said adamantly. "You didn't pinch a nerve, you severed a vein!" He searched the cupboards until he found some bandage and gauze.

She begrudgingly let him wrap her wound while complaining, "If this is just a dream, why does this even matter? We could be wasting time here!"

"Athena!" When he finally snapped at her, she flinched and looked him in the eyes. "You need to slow down for once! I know you don't want to believe it, and I don't want to either, but there is an all-too-real possibility that what's happening here is more real than we know! I mean, if this was just a dream, why haven't we woken up yet? I've been through all sorts of terrifying situations and I'm still here."

"But you're just a part of my dream," she muttered. "Your rules don't apply to me."

Phoenix sighed and nodded. "Okay, fine. If that's the case then just think of me as a good guy in your nightmare. Sticking with the good guy is the smart thing to do, right?"

Athena wasn't sure what to believe about what she had seen, but Phoenix at least seemed to be looking out for her. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful from now on." He finished dressing her wound and she moved her arm around, amazed by the fact that it actually stung. "So ,we're going to look for a phone number to transport." She tried hard to accept that fact. "Where exactly are we trying to go?"

Phoenix shook his head. "Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I've figured out quite a few things about this abyss, but I have yet to find a way out of it entirely. It's been a game of cat and mouse this whole time and I've barely managed to escape the traps that I've already come across."

She tried hard to pay attention to her boss as he went on and on about rules, but the phone message kept coming to mind and it made her heart race. Finally, she felt like she could take no more standing still, so she insisted that they go out number hunting, if only to get moving again. In the end, only one thing he said really stuck with her, and that was that there were ghosts here who had attacked him. He didn't say anything about fighting back though, and Athena was determined to fight off anything that tried to get in her way.

When they reached the nurse's station on the third floor, she looked at her phone again and mumbled, "Do you think we should try calling Simon's phone?"

Phoenix continued to search around the room while telling her, "I don't think that's a good idea. Whatever happened to Blackquill in this abyss sounds a bit darker than we're prepared to face. And I'm not certain that we want to be just calling anyone's phones. I don't know if what we do in here affects things in the real world."

Athena still couldn't bring herself to believe that the so-called "abyss" was anything more than a horrible nightmare, but she had given up on arguing with Phoenix.

"Hey, check this out!" He held up a document and she took it to examine, only to find herself extremely confused.

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><p><em>NURSE CONTACT INFORMATION:<em>

_EMA SKYE: XXX-X63-214_

_AURA BLACKQUILL: XXX-X38-922_

_ADRIAN ANDREWS: XXX-X16-286_

_ATHENA CYKES: XXX-X21-884_

_PLUM KITAKI: XXX-X55-364_

_FURTHER RECORDS AVAILABLE IN THE BASEMENT._

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><p>"Since when were you a nurse?" Phoenix muttered as he examined the contact sheet.<p>

Athena rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm. "I've never even gone to med school, dummy. But look at the other names. Aura's on here too." She pulled out her cell phone and checked through the contacts to find that the numbers shown were, in fact, the end of Aura's actual phone number. She knew for a fact that the numbers for her were accurate as well. "What the heck does this mean?"

Phoenix found a slip of paper and a pen and started to scribble out a little note. Athena read over his shoulder as he wrote it. "Check basement? Is that a little reminder for yourself?"

"I hope so. But I can't deny the possibility that there are others like us stuck in this world as well. If I leave little messages about the things that I've discovered, maybe I can help them out a bit." He looked at the contact list again and decided, "Your phone's actually in this world, that much we know for sure. Why don't we write out the whole number in case someone else needs to transport to us or maybe even contact us?"

Still a bit uncertain of the whole situation, Athena nodded and wrote out her number on the scrap of paper along with her name. "Who else do you think could be here?" she wondered as she wrote the last three digits. She thought of the man in the mask and bit her lip.

"You're the only other person I've run into who hasn't acted like a ghost, so I think it's safe to assume it was just the people at the agency earlier," he told her.

"So then Apollo, Larry, Maya, and maybe even Trucy?"

Phoenix flinched at the mention of his daughter. "Yeah. That's why we have to find a way out of here."

This all seemed like a bit much for Athena's imagination to come up with, so she decided that, dream or not, she should take Phoenix at his word and pretend that this was all real. Besides, even in nightmares, Trucy was simply off-limits.

"Then let's get going! Should we try calling Aura? I've got the rest of her number in my phone," Athena offered.

Phoenix shrugged and told her, "Honestly, I've never checked the contacts already in the phones before. I wonder if going off a partial number will be safe." He held out his hand and decided, "Let me try it first. You know how to work your phone better, so if you went first, I might not be able to figure out how to use it once you're gone." Athena nodded and pulled up the number before handing him the phone. Phoenix hesitated. "Look, I don't want you to follow me right away. I could be walking into danger. I should be able to find the phone that I called pretty quickly, so when I do, I'll call your phone, understood? If you answer, I don't think I'll transport back. I'll let you know if we're in the clear."

She didn't like letting him play the martyr, but his plan was sound. He gave her a reassuring nod before hitting send and putting it up to his ear. Athena watched in amazement as he just faded out of existence. When Phoenix was completely gone, her phone dropped to the floor.

It was then that she realized she didn't have a flashlight like he did. The office seemed much creepier in the impenetrable darkness. It took her a moment to find her phone on the floor, then she turned on her video camera and the constant flash worked as a great flashlight. "Sure hope batteries don't run out in this place," she muttered to herself.

She waited a couple minutes for Phoenix's call, but it never came. She knew that he would have to search for the phone that he'd called, but how long could that take? Feeling both worried and anxious, she decided to keep looking around the hospital a bit. Maybe she would find something that he'd missed along the way. She made her way back out to the hall and saw the man in the opera mask again. She knew the man. How could she forget him?

He was the one who killed her mother.

He turned away and ran for the stairwell. "Wait!" He was the Fulbright that she knew. He was the cause of all the pain in her life. There was no way that she was going to let him get away.

Not after he let Simon take the fall.

Not after he let Simon die.

She sprinted after the man with more adrenaline pumping through her than when she raced the bus. She couldn't let him get away—he wouldn't! Dream or no, he had caused her too much pain.

As she rounded the corner to the third floor hallway, she almost ran smack into a young woman. "Whoa! S-sorry! I'm, uh, looking for someone. Tall guy, freaky mask. You haven't seen him, have you?"

The girl wasn't familiar to Athena, but her presence was somewhat calming. She looked dainty, and she moved with a sort of grace that made Athena jealous. Her red hair framed her pale face and two symmetrical braids crowned her head. She wore a pretty little white dress and carried a white parasol. All in all, she seemed to be out of place in such a dark, run down hospital.

The girl gave a slight giggle and tilted her head towards her parasol. Athena tried to imagine what she would look like if she tried something like that. It wasn't nearly as dainty or beautiful as the mysterious girl. "You must be Athena." She extended a soft hand and said, "I'm Dahlia. I used to date your employer."

Dahlia. Phoenix had mentioned her back when Athena was only half paying attention. She was supposed to be bad news, so Athena chose not to shake her hand. "Right. Look, I'm just trying to find the guy who came up here. If you didn't see him-"

Dahlia smiled and said in her sing-song voice, "You're an amazing woman, aren't you? Strong and confident. It's so terrible that you weren't strong enough to save him."

"Shut up." Athena was shocked by her own reply Why was she being so curt with this girl? "I _did_ save him. I became an attorney. I faced my past!" Something was wrong. Athena took a step back and asked, "How do you even know about Simon?"

Dahlia's lovely mask seemed to fall. She ran her hand through her hair and let it fall to her shoulder as she looked about indifferently and said, "Oh, please." Suddenly she lunged at Athena, and when they were face to face she grinned darkly and whispered, "The dead are quite familiar with the dead."

Dahlia passed right through Athena and the frazzled attorney dropped to one knee with her hand clenching her chest. It felt like death itself had gone through her. Her whole body was cold and rigid and her breaths came in scattered gasps. More than anything, she was scared. The dream was becoming too real for her. She was losing sight of reality. Was this the dream? Was the world she had come to know a dream? She understood psychology well. Was it possible that, in order to protect herself from the cruel truth, she had created a reality of her own where she had succeeded when she had actually failed?

Then she saw him again.

The man with the mask actually seemed to notice her this time, and he reacted by running into the operating room where she had first woken up.

With a newfound need to understand the truth, Athena got up and chased after him. He wasn't in the first part of the operating room, but there was a katana sitting neatly on a shelf. Without thinking, she picked it up and removed its sheath. Then she went to the door to the inner room. She tucked her phone under her left arm and slowly opened it as she held the sword in her right hand. Then she used the light to illuminate the room.

The man with the mask was standing by the operating table with his back turned to her. He was still wearing her mother's coat. She approached him slowly, hoping to sneak up on him, when her cell phone started ringing. He turned to look at her and she dropped the phone to grab his arm and sling him over her shoulder with all her might. He landed hard on the cold metal table and gave a grunt. The phone landed face up, so she was still able to see, and it kept ringing. The more it rang, the angrier she felt. She thought of the message she had received earlier. She thought of how Simon must have suffered.

Something in her finally snapped and hot tears burned her eyes as a smile peeled across her face. "It's not my fault," she muttered as she raised the katana over the man's chest. "I did everything that I could."

As the phone continued to ring, Phoenix materialized. He barely got his bearings when he saw the horrible scene. Athena was standing over a man with a sword at the ready, and just behind her was Dahlia.

"ATHENA, NO!"

But he was too late. She plunged the katana deep into the man's chest. Phoenix's heart sank. The whole thing looked just like the scene of her mother's murder.

Athena's hands stayed firmly grasped on the handle of the katana as she began to laugh. Tears streaked her face, but her lips were curled up into an almost unnatural smile. "He got what he deserved," she said between giggles. "He killed Mom. . . He killed Simon. . . Now he's gone. He can't hurt me anymore." She drew the bloody sword out and as the body moved, the mask fell off, revealing Simon Blackquill's face.

"Wh—what?" Athena stumbled backwards and Dahlia went through her again. This time, the shock and chill made her drop the katana and collapse to her knees. The horrible smile was still plastered on her face. "No. That's. . . That's not right."

"What's not right?" Dahlia walked around the operating table and ran her hand over Simon's head. "You killed the man in the mask. Wasn't that what you wanted?"

Phoenix shook his head and looked away. "Athena, what have you done?"

Tears continued to flood from Athena's eyes as she stared at Simon's hand in disbelief. "No. . . He didn't. . . He couldn't. . ."

Dahlia raked her hand through Simon's long hair and pulled out the tie that kept it up, letting long, dark strands fall through her fingers as she said, "No, maybe he couldn't. But you certainly could. There was no hesitation. No time for remorse." She walked back over to Athena and carefully crouched to get a better look at her face. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you enjoyed it."

"Leave her alone!" Phoenix took a hesitant step forward and Dahlia's attention turned to him.

"Or what, Feenie? You'll kill me?"

Kill. Die. Athena couldn't stop laughing or crying. Widget remained silent around her neck. Her feelings were conflicting too much. She couldn't take the pain. She wanted it to stop. She _had_ to make it stop.

Her eyes fell on the katana at her side.

"Please, Dahlia! You don't even know her! She's not a part of any of this! Why can't you just leave her alone?" Phoenix begged.

Dahlia scoffed at him and looked away indifferently. "She's with you. That's enough for me. You should all suffer."

Phoenix shouldn't have looked away from Athena. She retrieved the katana and thrust it into her own stomach. He looked back at her when he heard her laughter broken by gurgling. Blood spilled from her smile as the color drained from her face. "No. Oh god, Athena. How could I let this happen?"

Dahlia pulled the sword from Athena and it vanished in her hand. Athena no longer had any color. She looked as dead as the other ghosts that Phoenix had encountered. Dahlia then snapped her fingers and Athena's clothes changed from her usual yellow suit to a nurse's scrubs. "There. Now she fits her role better," she remarked, satisfied with her work. "Now, on your feet."

Athena rose up and looked right at Phoenix with her dead eyes. She was still conscious. She didn't feel better, she felt worse. It felt like she was constantly suffering. She felt cold, but still on fire. And, for some reason, she still couldn't keep herself from laughing. "I. . . I'll fix him," she said between breaths. "I'll. . . I'll put him back together!" She thought of the sight of her mother from her childhood and let that image fill her mind. She didn't want to think anymore. She just wanted to let go.

"What have you done to her?" Phoenix asked, a tremble apparent in his voice.

"I only helped her to better fit in in this world," she said innocently. "What she does from here is all her. Of course, her mind seemed to be pretty shattered when she died. That doesn't get fixed here." She turned away from him and glanced over her shoulder as she said, "I've got another little friend of yours to attend to. Bye bye, Feenie." She vanished, leaving Phoenix alone with Athena.

"Athena?" Phoenix took one step towards her and she rushed him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him while laughing in his face. All she could think of was how fragile he felt and how easy it would be to break him.

She could break him just like she broke Simon.

"ARGH!" Phoenix forced her off and it was like she had come to realize what she was doing. What she had done. All the pain came rushing back at once, and it made her angry. How dare he make her go through it again. It was easier to just laugh and lash out.

Phoenix hastily grabbed her castaway cell phone and fumbled around with it. He was going to leave her. How could he leave her alone like this?

No, he should leave her. She might hurt him. She didn't really want to hurt him, did she?

Athena's head was a mess. Her hesitation gave Phoenix just enough time to dial a number and she laughed as she watched him vanish.

She looked at the operating table to find that not a trace of Simon remained there. She was glad for that. She couldn't handle seeing him like that any longer. She just wanted the pain to stop.

* * *

><p>It felt like she had been alone forever when a man with a strange piece of head-wear stepped into the OR. She had been so lonely that she couldn't help herself. She needed to do something. Needed to be active. And he was so old and breakable. She hated him for being alive while she wasn't. She hated him for crying out to others when no one helped her. But when she came close to killing him, she stopped herself. That wasn't who she was. She let him go. He had places to be.<p>

* * *

><p>When Edgeworth showed up, it was a different story. She knew him. She didn't always like him, but he wasn't a bad man. She tried to tell him about her pain, but every time she looked at him, she felt a seething hatred, yet again to the fact that he hadn't ended up like her. The desire to kill him was strong, but so was the desire to cry out for help. So, even when she let him go, she still felt the need to see him.<p>

So, she finally went out of the operating room. She no longer felt the need to walk. It was pointless. Unnecessary. As were all of the walls and doors. They were just like air. She followed Edgeworth until she saw him going into the nurse's station where Phoenix had first left her. She felt anger burn through her again and couldn't help but lash out at him. She wanted him out of there. So, she attacked him again, but once he got out the door she just slammed it behind him and locked it. She couldn't understand why she could touch the door, she just knew that she was glad she had. But, once it was locked, she found that even she didn't seem to be able to get out of the room. A little part of her decided that that was for the best. She would continue to suffer, but she would just have to suffer alone.

* * *

><p>Time was no longer a concept that Athena could fathom, but after a while someone <em>did<em> join her in the nurse's station. It was a woman who almost seemed familiar. Unlike the colorless form that Athena had, this woman seemed to radiate light. At her side stood a black cat with a red bandanna.

Because the woman was also dead, Athena harbored no ill will towards her. She had no reason to acknowledge her at all. She just wanted to be left alone.

"No more. . ." Athena mumbled. Her smile was still stuck on her face, but she wasn't laughing now. "Please. . ."

The woman gave a genuine smile and the cat said, "It's going to be okay. This time, you're going to wake up."

Wake up? This time? Why was a cat talking? Athena shrank away from the woman, but the cat slowly walked over to her. "Just close your eyes. It's time to leave this place."

Athena wasn't sure why she was listening to a cat, but nothing seemed to make sense anymore. So she closed her eyes tightly, wishing with all her heart that things hadn't happened the way they did.

* * *

><p>When Athena opened her eyes, she was face to face with a dark-eyed monster.<p>

"AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"

The monster cringed and backed away. "Gah! Should have seen that coming."

That's when she realized that the monster wasn't a monster at all, but Simon Blackquill. He turned to look at Phoenix and Edgeworth as they walked into the room and she saw how his long hair draped over his shoulder. It wasn't tied back. Like when Dahlia raked her hand through it.

"Y—y—you're alive?" she tried to confirm, getting him to look back at her. "You're r—r—really alive?" Her whole body was shaking. She wasn't ready to lose him. Not again.

Blackquill stood upright and helped her to her feet. "Of course I am."

She couldn't contain her relief. "You're alive!" She tackled him right back down to the floor and kept her arms wrapped around his neck. "Thank god! I thought that they. . . I thought that you. . . I thought that I. . ." She started crying and Blackquill awkwardly rubbed her back to calm her down.

"It was simply a nightmare," he assured her.

"Some nightmare," Apollo mumbled. "I mean, I had one too." Before he could elaborate, Trucy was hanging on him. It took him time to better explain what he meant. "Actually, a part of me was kind of scared that I wouldn't wake up." A nervous hand went to his chest as he added, "That Dahlia girl killed me, but I was still trapped in that awful place."

Athena finally let go of Blackquill and looked at Apollo. Their eyes met and she saw in his the same sadness that she had felt. She could hardly believe what he'd said. "She got to me too! It was so awful. She. . ." Athena trailed off and Widget's face changed from happy to scared as she recalled her own death. She ended up lying to Apollo. Dahlia didn't kill her. . .

"Hang on. Just what's going on here?" Apollo stood up and pointed at Athena. "Your dream sounds really similar to mine. Did you see Phoenix too?"

Now it really was getting weird. "Yeah! He tried to calm me down and explain that it wasn't really a dream!"

The duo looked to their mentor, who waved his hands in front of himself defensively. "I was just trying to help!" Phoenix straightened out and smiled. "It's so good to see you alive, though. . . When did Blackquill get here?"

Blackquill found a rubber band in his pocket and used it to tie his hair back. "I realized that I said some harsh things to Cykes-dono yesterday, so I stopped by to make amends. You can imagine my surprise when I found the little Wright crying as she let me in. You were all out cold. We tried to wake you, but nothing seemed to work. I was. . . worried."

Athena had all but forgotten his curt phone call

"UUUWAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Everyone jumped when Larry snapped awake screaming. He immediately went back to being his usual oafish self, so Athena wasn't too worried about him until he described the dream that he had had. It was so similar to hers that it was uncanny.

"You too?" She looked back at Apollo when his voice echoed hers.

"Whoa. Have you guys been practicing that?" Larry asked, looking between them.

It wasn't long after that that they realized Maya was missing. Everybody looked about frantically until Edgeworth tried calling her. He got through to her, but he seemed really shaken up the entire time they spoke, then he got cut off. How could they lose that girl? She stuck out like a sore thumb!

Thankfully, the neighbor of the Anything Agency—the groovy inspector Cabanela (whom Athena had bumped into a few times during his stair-walk-dances)—stopped by and mentioned crossing paths with Maya. After that, the doorbell buzzed, so everybody went running downstairs only to find that Pearl was the one trying to get in.

"Pearly? Please tell me you've seen Maya." Trucy cupped the little spirit medium's hand in hers, but Pearl didn't understand why everyone looked so frantic.

"That's why I'm here," she reminded them. "I'm her to visit—" She looked up without thinking pulled away from Trucy's hands to cover her mouth as she screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"

Everybody's eyes shot up and they saw Maya at the edge of the roof, just as she went too far. Hearts stopped as they all started to register just what was happening. Maya was going to fall. The thought was too horrible.

Then they noticed the blue sleeve as a hand reached out and pulled her back just in time. A sigh of relief fell over everybody.

"What the _HELL_ is going on here?" It was the most upset anyone had ever heard Pearl. Trucy quickly ushered her into the building and tried to explain what she experienced while Larry unhelpfully filled in the details on the other end. The others quickly followed them in, but Athena hung back for a moment. When she thought that no one was paying attention, she let her legs finally give out.

She did _not_ realize, however, that one other person stayed back with her until a pair of arms caught her as she fell. "Cykes-dono?"

Athena tensed and quickly stood on her own two feet, pulling away from him. "W-what? I'm fine! Are you fine? No problems here!"

Simon clearly didn't buy it. "Cykes—" He stopped himself and shook his head. "Athena-dono, what did you see in your dream? Why are you so shaken up?"

Hot tears burned at her eyes, but she fought them back with all that she had and instead smiled. "Nothing that an ace defense attorney like me couldn't handle!"

"SO AWFUL!"

Athena almost squeaked when Widget betrayed her true feelings again. It made containing her emotions even more difficult.

But, what really pushed her over was when Simon pulled her to his chest and just hugged her. It was clearly awkward for him. Hell, it was awkward for her. But in that deep, certain voice of his, he told her, "It's okay. I know how strong you are. You don't have to always smile."

That did it. Tears started falling and her frown peeled away. She gripped his back tightly and just cried into his chest. He continued to hold her until she was satisfied, then she wiped her eyes and slapped her cheeks to return some color to her face. "Feel better?"

Athena took a few deep breaths and nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. . . I guess I needed that." She gave a genuine smile and said, "We should hurry up and join everybody. Make sure Maya's okay."

Simon just nodded and followed her back inside.

* * *

><p>It seemed like things were still settling down when they reached the agency. Pearl was somewhere between screaming at Maya and crying as everyone was still trying to make sense of what had happened. Nobody seemed to notice that Athena and Simon had just joined them.<p>

After a little while Phoenix started to give a better explanation and with quite a bit of discussion and some help from a spirit (whom Athena recognized as the woman with the cat in her dream), they started to grasp what had happened. The danger _was_ real. They very well _could_ have died. The thought was enough to make Athena nervous again, but Simon noticed and put a hand on her shoulder to let her know that he was there if she needed him. She knew that she had no reason to worry now. He was alive. They all were alive. They were going to be okay.

Maya's stomach kicked off the fun that was supposed to happen the night before. They needed burgers for a prison visit. The whole thing sounded a bit questionable to Athena until Simon assured her, "Godot-dono is an honorable man. I think you will like him."

For now, as long as Simon was there, Athena felt ready to face anything. "I'm sure I will. After all, you and Maya were both accused of murder and I love you guys, don't I?"

Simon just gave a slight smile, but it was more than enough.

"Thank you," she murumured, and her hand brushed against his for just a moment.

"For what?"

She shook her head and didn't say anything else to him before hurrying over to Apollo. "Come on, Apollo! Let's go get some burgers!"

* * *

><p><strong>AN ::**

**Shikola Krasno::**

**I've been wanting to write this accompanying piece for a while, but it could never really be completed until we solidified the end of the actual story. The fact of the matter is: Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, and Larry weren't the only ones affected by the black magatama. Thankfully, snatching Phoenix's magatama protected Trucy, and Blackquill only really showed up at the end (on a whim, I might add, because I think he's scary looking no matter what), so they weren't a part of the issue. But Athena and Apollo were both in the Mnemonic Abyss, and clearly both of them were killed.**

**I will formally apologize for what I made Athena do to herself (and Blackquill) in this chapter. I needed her to go crazy because, well, she was freaking crazy when Edgy and Godot encountered her! I will also confess to being a huge supporter of the Athena/Simon shipping, but I tried to keep that out of things as much as possible because our story is all about plausibility (the Edgeworth and Phoenix thing was just a horrible coincidence). But that doesn't mean I can't have a cute scene here and there (I was also very happy that Melody thought I didn't add enough)! All honesty, I think Athena's experience is going to be ranked as the worst of the group. I mean, she not only died, she killed herself after killing the man she so desperately wanted to save! That's harsh! Although, it was Apollo's that made me the most distraught, so you'll just have to wait and decide for yourself.  
><strong>

**This is it for her story, but there will be a bit more with her in Apollo's—not as a ghost—so if you want more closure read his when I finally finish it. It will also be dark, but not quite as awful as Athena's circumstances. . . I think. . . He at least won't be killing himself, that's for sure. . .**

**Hope you enjoyed this! Just keep reminding yourself that everything worked out fine, right?**

**Melody Canta ::**

**Athena's story reminds me of Romeo and Juliet for some reason. I'll admit to being a Simon/Thena shipper too, although I'm nowhere near the level Shikola is. Ironically, I added a tiny bit of it in this chapter at the end because I didn't think it was enough. **

**I'll admit to being more excited for Polly's. I think everyone knows by this point that I have a soft spot for Apollo. Besides, Shikola has the burden of dealing with the far more logical Apollo. I'm just along for the ride. **


	2. ES :: The Lies

**Extra Scene :: The Lies**

All Apollo wanted was to go home and forget about his indentured servitude to Trucy.

The field trip might not have been so bad if her class hadn't visited the Nine-Tails Vale, but then she and Jinxie were determined to get a great match between the Nine-Tails Fox and Tenma Taro and, of course, the rest of the kids thought that Jinxie's dad was Tenma Taro. Somehow Apollo had ended up in the Nine-Tails' costume, fighting for dear life. There was no way that it looked like a fair fight to the kids, but Trucy kept assuring him that he did great.

Now he was dropping her off at the agency and determined to make a break for it before Athena showed up and forced him to stick around for the party that he wanted no part of.

"Help me carry the souvenirs up, Polly!" Trucy insisted as soon as he parked his car by the building.

"I didn't think you bought much," he said lightly, hoping that he could avoid the task.

"I didn't," she said outright. "But Jinxie and Mr. Tenma insisted that I bring home some presents!"

How she had managed to stuff the trunk of his car with so many bags without him noticing was far beyond his comprehension, but there was no way that she could get everything up in just one trip on her own. Multiple trips would just delay his escape even further. "Alright! Let's do this!" Without thinking, he hoisted up all the bags and ran inside.

"Wait, Polly! I can carry some!" Trucy offered.

Apollo reached the elevator and shouted, "I AM FINE! No need to worry!"

"But the elevator hasn't been working all week!"

Apollo took a deep breath and started to sprint up the stairs. The apartment complex had seven floors and the Anything Agency was, unfortunately, on the sixth. The bags, however, weighted more than Apollo had anticipated and, by the time he reached the sixth floor, he was thoroughly spent.

"I. . . Am. . . Fine. . ."

Trucy opened the door for him and he collapsed inside.

"Wow! You really run your employees ragged, don't you Nick?"

That particular voice made Apollo feel infinitely more exhausted.

"Uncle Larry! Does that mean that Daddy's home too?"

Phoenix walked into the common room. "If you call him that he might get the wrong idea, Trucy. Uncles are responsible. Larry is. . . Just don't call him that."

"Niiiiick! Don't tell your daughter that!"

Apollo had met Larry shortly after the trial where Phoenix had reinstated the juror system. As an official employee of the Anything Agency, he figured that he had seen it all, but then he met the Butz. Surely there was nothing more irritating than that man. How Phoenix had dealt with him for so long was the greatest mystery Apollo had ever faced.

"I, uh, just came to drop off Trucy and her things," Apollo said between breaths as he stood up.

"Wait, aren't you going to stick around for the party?" Larry wondered.

Phoenix caught Apollo by the shoulders and said in a grave voice, "If you run now, I'll understand."

"Daddy! Maya and Thena are at the door! You should go greet them!"

And that was that. There would be no sneaking away at that point for Apollo. Athena would surely catch him and, whether or not she used force, he knew that he couldn't refuse her. Part of him still felt a little guilty for accusing her of murdering his best friend. "It's okay, Mr. Wright. I have to face this like a man. I AM FINE!"

Phoenix smiled and mumbled, "Say it enough and maybe one day I'll believe it," before heading out to let the girls in.

His mentor's words caught Apollo off guard. He really was fine. Why wouldn't he be?

"So what's the spread for tonight, Tiny?" Larry asked, snapping Apollo out of his state of reverie.

Trucy's face suddenly went blank. "Oh no. I forgot about snacks! I can't serve you guys instant noodles and TV dinners! I've got to tell Daddy!" She hurried out after Phoenix, leaving Apollo with the last man that he ever wanted to deal with.

"Trucy really has you wrapped around her little finger, huh?" Larry noted as he elbowed Apollo in the side. "Wouldn't it be weird if you were to, say, start calling Nick 'Dad' instead of 'Boss'?"

Apollo rolled his eyes and explained to Larry for what had to be the hundredth time: "That'd be like dating my own sister. Plus she's much younger than me. That's not right."

"Age is no issue!" Larry argued.

"Larry, I'm a lawyer, remember? Age is a serious issue. And if I _ever_ catch you with a minor I might just have to quit defending and start prosecuting."

"Awww, Pollyyyy! You know I'd never do anything _that_ stupid!" Larry stuck out his tongue and rubbed the back of his head, making the bracelet tighten on Apollo's wrist. Apollo made a mental note to keep an eye on the moron.

Athena was the first one through the door and she looked right at Apollo as she stepped in with numerous bags hanging off her arms. "Oh good, you're already here!"

Apollo smiled half-heartedly. "Yeah. I'm here."

Things quickly got out of hand as Maya decided that burgers were a necessary addition to the party and Athena got anxious to watch One Missed Call (which seemed like a bad idea no matter how Apollo looked at it).

It had taken even longer for Apollo to actually meet Maya than it did for him to meet Larry. Pearl had come to visit the agency one day and he couldn't help but wonder why such a young girl was so obsessed with Mr. Wright. When Trucy explained that she was the cousin to Phoenix's "special someone," he was amazed. Not once had Phoenix mentioned Maya to him. It was the strangest thing. When Apollo finally confronted the old attorney about it, he saw something in the man that he had thought long dead. His eyes were clear and he stood up straight as he said, "She was my treasured assistant."

The way that he had said that made Apollo think that something had happened to her. Then one day, out of nowhere, a strange girl claiming to be a spirit medium showed up at the agency, demanding that Phoenix take her out for burgers. It was like his whole demeanor changed in her presence. He went from freakishly cool and collected, to off-guard and genuine. It was the strangest thing, but since seeing her again Phoenix had even gained the motivation to try the bar again and get his badge back. It was like she had brought the defense attorney back.

It took a while for Apollo to make enough burgers to satisfy the hungry spirit medium—especially after the others thoroughly screwed up so many—but after a while they ran out of patties. It was then that Athena insisted on putting in One Missed Call.

Having finished his burger, Phoenix stood up. "Do whatever you want, just don't disturb the neighbors."

"What? You're going to sleep already?" Trucy whined. "But Daddy!"

He put a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Sorry, Trucy. I just feel the need to look into an old case. I'll party with everyone next time."

"But Niiiick!" Larry and Maya were surprisingly in sync with each other.

Apollo looked at his mentor and saw a slight crack in the old man's armor. It was unusual. It wasn't like Phoenix had dropped his guard the way that he did around Maya, and he wasn't acting like he did during his hobo-phase, but something was definitely off. It was almost like he wasn't there with them at all. Like maybe something from the past was pulling him in.

"Mr. Wright," Apollo got his attention before he could sneak off and shot him a thumbs up. "We are fine!"

Phoenix gave him a tired smile before retiring to his room.

Athena had the movie in in no time and decided that she wanted to sit in the reclining chair that Apollo was already in. "Tell you what, I'll fight you for it!"

"What? No! I already had to wrestle Tenmataro today! My body can't take anymore!" he objected. "How about a chords of steel battle?"

"Start yelling and I'll throw you all out!" Phoenix called out from his room.

Athena fumed a bit before Maya suggested, "How about a staring contest? That's quiet _and_ intense!"

They agreed and it began before anyone could say otherwise. As the previews played, they continued to stare at each other with wide and watery eyes. But then a preview for another horror film flashed onto the screen behind Athena's head and the image of a young man on the ground with a knife in his chest made Apollo jump and blink.

"Ha! Victory! The chair is mine!"

"Sure. Whatever." Apollo stood up quickly and settled in next to the chair, with his back against the wall. He hugged his knees to his chest and tried to shake the feeling of sadness. "It's just a commercial," he whispered. "I am fine." The image of his best friend's dead body flashed through his head and he fought back the urge to cry.

Trucy sat by him when he wasn't paying attention and asked, "What's wrong, Polly?"

"Huh? N-nothing. I'm fine." He let his knees fall and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. "It's just been a while since I watched a scary movie, I guess."

"Polly's a fraidy-cat!" Larry teased loudly.

"Fraidy-cat! Fraidy-cat!" Maya chanted with him.

"Guys, we can't be so loud!" Trucy reminded them only to pause. "Wait, why isn't Daddy yelling at us?"

Apollo felt the same pang of concern, "I'll go check on—"

All of a sudden, he felt inexplicably dizzy and the world seemed to warp around him. He thought that he could hear Trucy screaming, but the sounds were all jumbled and indistinct. He tried to get a hold of himself, but there was no escape and he quickly lost consciousness.

* * *

><p>Apollo woke up feeling dazed. He tried to regain his bearings, mumbling, "How long was I out?" He hadn't exactly been expecting a response, but the silence was a little concerning. He finally looked around and realized that no one was there. In fact, "there" wasn't even the agency!<p>

In spite of the lingering dizziness, Apollo stood up quickly and looked around. The room he was in was considerably smaller than the common room at the agency and had a particularly old-fashioned feel to it. The dim lighting also served to make the setting incredibly eerie. There was a light, though, and it was coming from a single candle that stood in front of a small memorial shrine. At the shrine was a framed photo with the picture of a woman inside. The woman seemed vaguely familiar, but the strange bead on her necklace definitely reminded him of Maya's, Pearl's, and Phoenix's beads.

Apollo could just barely recall learning about the trial concerning the murder of Phoenix's mentor in law school. "Mia," he breathed. Thinking that it might be a sensitive subject, he never brought her up to Phoenix, but when he had first met Maya, he learned that she was that very woman's younger sister. "But who would have a shrine for Mia Fey?" he wondered out loud.

Without warning, Jinxie popped out of the shrine and slapped a talisman onto his forehead. "What the heck?" He looked around for her but she was nowhere to be seen. "Where did she even come from?"

"BEWARE YOUR DEMONS, DEMON LAWYER!" A timid voice warned. "MY TALISMAN CAN ONLY PROTECT YOU FROM SO MUCH!"

Apollo rolled his eyes and ripped the paper off his forehead. "Quit messing around, Jinxie. Is this a joke you and Trucy decided to play on me?"

No reply.

"Jinxie?" He went over to what he thought was a sliding closet door and forced it open only to see his old friend, Clay Terran, standing on the other side. The knife was still sticking out of his chest. Apollo screamed and fell backwards in a state of panic, accidentally putting out the candle at the shrine and making the room even darker. Clay drifted towards Apollo and looked down at him with black holes where his eyes should have been.

"APOLLOOOOOOO. . ." When Clay said his name, Apollo's heart stopped. "WHY DID I. . . DIE? APOLLO. . . PLEASE. . . YOU HAVE TO HELP ME. . ."

"I—I—I did!" Apollo assured him fearfully. "Fulbright's behind bars! I f—found your killer!"

Clay looked sad and started to back away. "NO. . . YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. . . NO. . . MY FAULT. . ." He faded away, leaving Apollo alone in his state of terror.

"Is this a dream?" He got back onto his feet and noticed that the door he opened didn't lead to a closet, but a whole different room. He found that the other room wasn't lit either, so he looked back at the shrine and found a box of matches next to the candle. He struck one and used it to light the candle again. He tucked the matches away in his pocket in case the candle went out. Then he picked up the candle, apologized to Mia, and went into the next room. "Dream or not, I've got to figure out what he meant," he decided. "I AM FINE!"

Having said that, he felt just a bit more confident. There were two more sets of sliding doors in the room over. One led to an actual closet, stocked with spare blankets and futons. The others led to a small hallway. He stepped out into the hallway and found that it went one way and led either to a dead end or a narrow staircase. He heard a strange sound coming from the stairs, so he approached them cautiously and looked down them. It was so dark that he couldn't see very far, but from what he could tell, they seemed to end in nothing more than a black abyss.

Too nervous to actually head down, Apollo turned back only to find himself face to face with the fraud he had come to know as "Detective Bobby Fulbright." The man grinned evilly, his eyes hidden by his sunglasses, and gave Apollo a stiff shove that sent him tumbling down the stairs.

Apollo ended up on his back with his head at the bottom of the steps and his feet a few steps up. "That actually hurt," he grumbled. He lifted his head up slightly, just in time to see the tanuki man from the vale, Phineas Filch, come squishing down the stairs on his stomach in a weird and unnatural way. "Gah!"

Before Apollo could even think to get away, the animal-like man snatched the shoes off his feet and disappeared into the shadows. "Well, that's just great." He let his head fall back and was shocked to find that it didn't land on the hard floor, but something soft instead. He glanced upwards and saw a rather angelic young woman with braids that started from her forehead and went back. She looked at him with such a gentle face that he couldn't help but feel comforted. "Who are you?" he asked.

The girl smiled for him and he could have sworn that he heard angels singing. "I'm an old friend of Feenie. And you must be Mister Justice."

Apollo righted himself and cleared his throat. "Apollo's fine, actually," he told her, eliciting another sweet smile. "Do you know where we are?"

The smile faded as the girl told Apollo, "This apartment used to belong to my cousin and her fiance. Did you know Mia?"

Apollo shook his head and explained, "She was killed back when I was still in school. Mr. Wright doesn't really talk about her much."

The pretty girl stood up gracefully and sighed. "I suppose he wouldn't. It was his fault that she died, after all."

"What? No. No, that was some Redd White guy!" Apollo defended. "He proved that."

The girl giggled. "Of course Feenie didn't _kill_ her. But why wasn't he there to protect her? If he had been there, she would still be alive. At least, that's what her fiance always believed."

"Well, I don't know about any fiance," Apollo confessed. "He wasn't mentioned in the records of that case."

The girl handed Apollo a letter and told him, "Poor Mister Armando was in a coma for five years only to wake up shortly after she died. This is what he wrote."

* * *

><p><em>Kitten,<em>

_ I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I should have never left you for so long. Oh God, why did you leave me, Mia? Why were you taken? You deserved so much better in life. And that man who claimed to be your student; he should be ashamed. He's a man. He was always by your side, but when you needed him most he was nowhere to be found. He forsook you. I've been studying him. He's so bad at his job without you there to guide him. Half of the time he's just stabbing at air! But somehow your little sister looks up to him and stands by his side. I will test him. For your sake, I'll turn away from death to see that he tastes it. To do that, I'll have to cast away my very name. Wait for me, Kitten._

_All my love, _

_Godot_

* * *

><p>"But. . . It wasn't his fault," Apollo muttered, though his confidence in his mentor was shaken. "There was nothing he could have done."<p>

The girl turned away from him sadly. "You really have quite a bit of faith in Feenie. I did too, once. But he let me down, just like he let Mia down."

Apollo shook the sinking feeling off. "What is this place? Why am I here?"

The girl's smile returned as she said in a voice like honey, "Because I wanted you to see the truth, Mister Justice." She disappeared right before his very eyes and left him in confusion.

"This can't be happening," he muttered. "I am f—f—fiine." He looked at the handwritten letter one last time before crumpling it up and casting it aside. "No. It's not Phoenix's fault. And none of this is real. Clay is dead, after all." Though he was trying to calm himself down, he felt painfully depressed. "I have to figure out what he meant. I just have to."

He looked down the short and narrow hallway where the beautiful girl had left him. On his right was a small table with an old fashioned rotary phone next to a rather eerie white lily. Further along the wall was a couple of western-style doors and on the left was a large, Japanese-style, sliding door. He figured that there was as good a place as any to start looking for answers.

The door was stuck in its frame, but with enough force it flew open and Apollo gasped at what he saw.

Inside the room were two people who looked like pale after-images. The man didn't seem familiar, but the woman he was with was definitely Mia Fey. They looked happy as they laid out a futon together. After it was set up, Mia took a wooden box with a magnificent painting of a black cat against a dark city background and opened it. Inside were scattered papers and things that she rifled through.

The man took the opportunity to get down on one knee and open a small ring box so that, when Mia finally turned around, she was presented with what had to be an engagement ring. Mia stared at him in shock for only a moment before saying something that Apollo couldn't hear. The man slipped the ring onto her finger as he stood up, then she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss. They looked so happy together, just standing there in each others arms. It was a truly touching scene.

The couple faded, leaving the cat box and futon behind, and Apollo couldn't help but wonder about the man. He had to be the fiance that the mysterious girl had mentioned. Apollo made a mental note to ask Maya about him later.

Suddenly, before Apollo could even gather his thoughts, Mia reappeared. She was sitting on the futon with tears in her eyes. Though he couldn't hear anything that they had said to each other before, Apollo could hear her sobbing rather distinctly. She lifted her face from her hands only to open the box and take out a pen and paper. She began writing through her tears for a while, and when she was done she put the stationary away, closed the box, and took a square off of it before rearranging the cat image like a slide puzzle. She pulled on the lid, confirming that it was locked, and then vanished yet again, leaving the box on the futon.

Why wasn't the other man there anymore? What had happened to him? Did it have to do with why Mia was crying? There were too many things that Apollo was uncertain about.

This time, someone else appeared over the futon. This particular person was a man who resembled the man who had given Mia the ring, but there were very obvious discrepancies between them. This man's hair, for example, was completely white while the other man's was darker. And this man wore a strange, electronic mask over his eyes that made his face completely unreadable. He seemed to be looking down at the box while clenching something tightly in his left hand. He knelt down and rearranged the pieces of the picture until it looked right again, then he placed the square that he had been holding into the image and opened it. Upon looking inside, he dropped the lid and the odd piece popped out and landed on the futon. He covered his mouth with his hand and Apollo could have sworn that he saw tears escape from beneath the mask.

The man vanished as well, leaving the box wide open. No one else showed up for a while, so Apollo finally stepped into the room and knelt on the futon. Inside of the box was quite the collection of papers, but sitting right on top was the ring box with the engagement ring still inside. That had to be what had elicited such a strong reaction from the man. Apollo removed it carefully and took a look at what turned out to be letters written by Mia, newspaper articles, and a couple of certificates. They seemed to be in order of dates, and the oldest was, for whatever reason, sitting at the top, so he started from there.

The very first document was the renters' contract for the apartment. It was signed by Mia Fey and Diego Armando. The pretty girl had called her cousin's fiance "Armando," so Apollo was able to confirm that the man who had been in the visions and had given her the ring had to be him, but that didn't explain the man who looked similar to him.

Just above that document was an article about Mia's first case. It apparently ended in tragedy when the defendant poisoned himself while at the stand. "What a rough place to start," Apollo mumbled. He couldn't help but think of his own first case. Phoenix had been the defendant, but his own mentor, Kristoph, was the killer.

Past that article was another with the headline: "Defense Attorney Poisoned Before Trial," and a generic picture of Diego was just beneath it. The article described how Mia had been appointed to the defense of Phoenix Wright in place of her mentor.

"Just how many times did he get accused of murder?"

The next thing was another article. This one announced the results of that particular trial. A miss Dahlia Hawthorne had been declared guilty of murder and poisoning an attorney. Right after that was the first of Mia's letters.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Diego,<em>

_I got her. It took more effort than it should have, thanks to a certain evidence-swallowing idiot, but Dahlia is finally behind bars. She's going to pay for what she did to you._

_I've got to say though, that Phoenix Wright kid that you were supposed to defend was so difficult to deal with. He was so adamant about the fact that he didn't kill the guy, but at the same time he seemed ready to take the fall for Dahlia's crime. Talk about useless. And after the trial was over he had the nerve to ask me how I knew what Dahlia was really like._

_I mean, duh!_

_I told that moron off good, saying that some snot-nosed art student couldn't take his head out of the clouds long enough to even see the truths that were right in front of him. Hopefully that'll give him a wake up call._

_Sorry. It's been a long day. I hope that you wake up soon._

_Love, Mia_

* * *

><p>Apollo couldn't help but smile to himself as he read the letter. Phoenix had mentioned something about being an art major in the past, but he didn't really go into much detail, and the green-nosed defendant that Mia described in her letter sounded amusing. "I'll definitely have to ask about this case."<p>

Another letter followed that one.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Diego,<em>

_It's hard to believe that you've been in a coma for three years now. I wonder if you can even sense me by your side when I visit you at the hospital. You're still alive, but I feel so lonely sometimes._

_Oh, but do you remember that Phoenix guy? Guess who sent me a formal application for employment? That dope's in his last year of law school now and he wants to be my intern! Like I want to deal with a pain in the ass like him!_

_But he did get me thinking. Maybe it's time for me to spread my wings and start my own firm? Grossberg's been great, but lately I feel like he's less of a help and more of a hindrance. How about, "Fey and Company Law Offices"? Of course, when you wake up, we can change the name to "Fey, Armando, and Company Law Offices." That would be nice._

_I'm still here waiting for you._

_Love, Mia_

* * *

><p>The way that Mia talked about Phoenix wasn't really amusing anymore. She really seemed to hate the guy. Thinking back on it, Phoenix only had nice things to say about her too. Could it have really been like this between them?<p>

Fey and Co. was the original name of the Anything Agency, though, so the letter seemed believable. In fact, before Apollo had gotten there, the office had been renamed "Wright and Co." due to her untimely demise. It was sad to read about how excited she was to have her own firm knowing that she wouldn't get to run it for long. Nonetheless, the next article was the official announcement of the Fey and Co. Law Offices.

The letter that followed was, yet again, about Phoenix.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Diego,<em>

_ Well, against my better judgement, I interviewed Phoenix. My biggest question was: why did he want to work under me? That idiot actually told me that he'd thought about becoming a lawyer years ago, but lost his motivation when a certain incident made him lose confidence in the power of the law. But when I stepped up to take your place at the stand, it gave him hope again. My work ever since only drove him to work harder._

_Can you believe it? Me. Inspiring! Honestly, his faith in me seems totally unfounded. But I shudder at the thought of this kid going into practice without proper guidance, so I think I might actually take him on. I must be out of my mind for even considering that. . ._

_I guess we'll just have to see how things go._

_Come back to me soon, please._

_Love, Mia_

* * *

><p>Apollo's image of his boss was destroyed with every new letter. He <em>did<em> have a habit of bluffing that didn't seem all that reliable, but it always managed to get him through in the end. Maybe he really didn't deserve that much respect?

The next letter must have come about a year or so after she took on Phoenix as an intern.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Diego,<em>

_ Phoenix took the bar exams a little while back and he gets his results back today. This is it. Today we find out what separates the men from the lawyers. I have my doubts, but for his sake, I'll pretend to be optimistic. He said that he'd come over to my apartment as soon as he got the results._

_Which made me realize that I haven't brought you up around him. He knew you, of course, since you were originally appointed to his defense, but he doesn't know about _us_. Frankly, I'm reluctant to tell him. I'm afraid that, if I told him about you, he'd try to live up to you. No one could live up to you, especially not this guy. Besides, I don't want to share you with him. Is that selfish? I guess it would take quite a bit of trust, though, to really open up about what happened to you, and Phoenix is too useless to trust with a pet rock._

_Seriously, I need you to wake up. I miss you. I'm so desperate that I'm considering this guy as a business partner. I need you to point out how stupid this decision is._

_Please come back to me._

_Love, Mia._

* * *

><p>Even Apollo could recall the dread that he felt when he waited for his results on the bar exam. He had practically held his breath throughout the entire wait, but Kristoph had been there to reassure him that he'd be fine.<p>

But Kristoph turned out to be a killer.

And if Mia thought this way about her underling, one could only imagine what Kristoph thought of Apollo. The thought was enough to shake his confidence.

The next letter took a grave turn surprisingly quickly.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Diego,<em>

_ I can't believe it. I started looking into the case that my mother consulted on when she disappeared and I found something out that I really didn't want to know. The person who sold my mother out in the DL-6 incident was Mr. Grossberg! I just don't get it. After all those years that I spent working under him, to think that he could keep something like that from me. I just had to confront him about it, and he told me that he sold the information to Redd White, the CEO of Blue Company._

_I'm going to look into the case. It's the least that I can do for my mother. This case, however, is deeply personal, so I'm not going to get Phoenix involved in it. He'd probably be completely unhelpful anyways._

_Which reminds me, I never did say the results of his bar exams! Well, Fey and Co. actually has two defense attorneys on the team now! His first trial is in a week! I'll be there to walk him through it, of course. I don't really have high hopes for him, but hopefully he won't use me as a crutch too much._

_I'll make sure to keep writing about my findings on Redd White and his Blue Company. Maybe I'll finally find out what happened to my mother._

_I wish you were here to help me out with this, but for now I'll just have to go at it on my own until you wake up._

_Love, Mia_

* * *

><p>Redd White and Blue company. Apollo sighed and shook his head slowly. Redd White was the man who eventually killed her. Apollo could understand why Diego might have been upset. Mia's decision not to tell Phoenix about things was pretty upsetting. It might not have been Phoenix's fault for not knowing what was going on, but it <em>was<em> his fault that she had so little faith in him! How could he be so stupid? She couldn't rely on him at all! Apollo couldn't help but feel irritated with his mentor for proving himself to be nothing more than a chore for Mia.

The next letter was the last from Mia.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Diego,<em>

_Phoenix's first trial was today. He had me worried throughout, and I ended up having to save him most of the time, but somehow he managed to pull off a not guilty verdict! I'm relieved, but the day when he doesn't need me is far away._

_I stopped by the hospital right after just to see you. I really want you to wake up. I need you. I can't shake this feeling of dread lately. The more that I delve into Redd White and Bluecorp, the more terrified I feel. I hope that I'm just being paranoid. That I'll be able to shake this off and laugh about it with you someday._

_I can't believe that it's been almost five years since you slipped into this coma. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't losing hope. I'm so afraid that I'll never see your smiling face again. Please return to me. I need you with me. I miss you more than anything._

_Please, please just wake up._

_Love, Mia_

* * *

><p>To Apollo's astonishment, the next letter was the very same one that he had tossed in the hallway. Down the the last word, it was Diego's regret letter. He had even chosen to change his name at the very bottom of it. But, worse than that was the letter that followed.<p>

* * *

><p><em>It'll be so nice to see Apollo today. It feels like it's been forever. And to think that he'll be bringing a girl with him! That dog! I hope he knows how lucky he is. Of course, I'm the lucky one that'll finally get to see the stars with our old buddy, Starbuck. I guess we both reached our dreams, huh?<br>_

_WHY? WHY DID I DIE?_

* * *

><p>Apollo shook fearfully as he clutched at the letter. Why was it there? The last line was written in what looked like blood. How could it be there? Clay couldn't have possibly written it before he died, but Apollo could recognize his friend's sloppy handwriting anywhere. "Clay. . ." He looked up slowly and saw his old friend standing over him. The knife was still sticking out of his chest.<p>

"WHY, APOLLO? I WAS SO CLOSE. . . BUT YOU. . . YOU WEREN'T THERE. . ."

"How could I have known?" Apollo cried. "Don't you think I'd have done anything to save you if I had been there? I'm sorry! I'm sorry, damn it!"

"NO. . . NOT AT FAULT. . . YOU WEREN'T THERE, APOLLO. . . WHY DON'T YOU. . . UNDERSTAND?"

"What's there to understand?"

"Apollo?"

The young attorney turned quickly to find Phoenix Wright standing in the open doorway. He didn't look like the other people Apollo had encountered at the apartment, since he was in full color. "Oh god, you're here too?" the weathered defense attorney said, astonishment plain on his face.

Apollo was relieved to finally see a familiar face that wasn't acting out of character or a part of some strange memory sequence. "Boss, I—" He stopped himself. Mia's letters came to mind and filled him with a sense of distrust towards his mentor. "Where are we?" he asked. Phoenix seemed to have a clue, so it was only fair that he explained things. "What's going on here?" He had so many questions and his heart was still racing from the recent encounter with Clay, who had vanished as soon as Phoenix entered the room.

Phoenix put his hands up to calm Apollo and explain, "This is my boss' old apartment. You've heard of Mia, right? But the weird thing is, we're not actually here."

"Not here? What are you talking about? We're both right here!" Apollo didn't mean to snap at his mentor, but his frustration and Mia's observations clouded his better judgement. "I don't understand! Why weren't you there for her?"

"What? For who?"

"For Mia!" Apollo stood up and yelled angrily. Nothing was making sense. "Why weren't you reliable enough for her to trust you? Why? You should have been better!"

Phoenix tensed at Apollo's accusations, but he still managed to speak in an even tone. "Apollo, there was nothing that I could have done for her. I blamed myself for her death in the past, but that didn't make anything better. I've got to keep living and doing what she taught me to do. That's how I can honor her memory."

"No! No, I can't! I should have been there. I should have been there to help him!" It finally dawned on Apollo. He was just like Phoenix. He should have been there when his friend died, and now Clay's death was eating away at him. "It's my fault. It's all my fault!"

Phoenix grabbed Apollo by the shoulders and shook him hard. "Apollo! Hey! You've got to stop this! This isn't you! It's Dahlia! She's making you act like this!"

The name "Dahlia" meant nothing to Apollo. He just pulled away from Phoenix and ran out to the hall. He ended up hiding in the bathroom, locking the door behind himself. He then sat down on the floor by the tub and hugged his knees. "I am fine. . ." he muttered, fighting back the tears. "I am fine, I am fine, I am fine!"

"That's right. You're just fine." The voice as soft as silk returned and he felt a gentle hand touching his back. He looked up to find the angelic woman had returned and greeted him with a sympathetic smile. "It's okay. Feenie just doesn't understand."

Apollo rubbed his eyes to hide his tears. "Why would he? He's just as useless as I am."

The girl smiled down at him and continued to rub his back comfortingly. "So you saw Mia's letters, huh?" Apollo furrowed his brow. Something about that statement had made his bracelet tighten around his wrist. It was good to know that his ability to observe the world around him hadn't been hindered by his emotional state, but it made him nervous to know that the kind girl was lying to him.

"What did you say?" he asked, trying to confirm just what was bothering him.

"I was just wondering if you saw the letters that Mia wrote." There it was. Whenever she brought up Mia's letters, her nails dug into the handle of her parasol and scratched along it.

"She didn't write those letters," Apollo breathed. The pieces started to come together in his head now that he knew the slander about Phoenix wasn't even written by his mentor. "Mister Wright said that someone named Dahlia was making me act like this. . . Dahlia. . . She was also mentioned in the forged letters. . . She's the one who put Diego Armando in a coma. She's the one who nearly got Wright charged with murder. Could it be that you are. . . Dahlia?"

He had figured out, but it was too late.

Dahlia's face became sinister as her hand gripped his neck with inhuman strength. She lifted him up and floated just above the floor. Apollo grabbed at her hand fearfully, desperately trying to free himself and get air into his lungs, but she held tight. "Nice sleuthing. Unfortunately, you're useless to me like this."

She dropped him over the bathtub and his body hit the water hard. He immediately tried to pull himself out to get air, but countless hands took hold of him and held him under.

Apollo struggled violently as his lungs began to take on water.

The burning sensation in his chest was overwhelming, but if he could just get above the water.

If he could just get some air.

Apollo reached his hand out of the water as he saw Dahlia's warped face, distorted by the ripples, staring down at him. He heard muffled sounds. Someone pounding on the door. They were calling out to him.

Phoenix.

He had to get out. Had to get back to the Agency. He still had work to do. He still had to give Athena a proper apology. Still had to do ridiculous tasks for Trucy's sake.

He opened his mouth to call out for help, and more water flowed into him. He couldn't take it anymore. It felt like something inside of him finally exploded from all of the water, and a brief pain spread throughout his entire body.

Then he felt nothing.

His eyes rolled up into his skull as his body gave out.

* * *

><p>Phoenix finally burst through the door to the bathroom where Apollo had run off to, but he found it empty. The floor was soaked from the flooded bath, and the surface of the water was still disturbed, but there was nobody in there.<p>

"Apollo? Kid, where did you go?" He looked for a phone, hopeful that Apollo had just figured out the transporting trick and left, but there wasn't any trace of one in that small bathroom. "People don't just disappear," he assured himself. "Even here, there's always a trick to it." He looked at the tub again and felt his stomach flip. The water was opaque, so he couldn't see into it. Like all other bathrooms he had encountered in the abyss, this one was filthy so he had no desire to fish around in the disgusting tub, but there was nowhere else to check.

Phoenix rolled up his sleeve as much as he could and stuck his hand into the water.

He wasn't sure what he had expected, but what he found was too much. His hand brushed against a soaked vest.

"No."

As if in response to his denial, a hand grabbed his submerged wrist. Phoenix pulled back quickly and a transparent version of Apollo emerged from the water, still clinging to his arm. Anticipating an attack (especially after Athena tried to kill him earlier), he fought Apollo's spirit off and backed into the corner of the room. Apollo just lingered over the tub looking miserable. Water dripped from his hair. Unlike many of the other ghosts Phoenix had encountered, though, the poor defense attorney didn't seem to have any malicious intent.

"You should have been there for her," he said sadly. "I should have been there for him. I should have never blamed her. It's my fault. All my fault."

Phoenix fought back hot tears. "It wasn't your fault! Damn it, Apollo. If you would have just listened to me. . ."

Apollo looked at him with dull eyes. "Listen to Wright. . . Listen to Wright. . ." Apollo sank into the tub and emerged with his signature red vest in his ghostly hands. "Clean the bathroom. . . Listen to Wright. . ." The tortured soul drifted over to the toilet and started to scrub it with his own vest.

Phoenix watched the horrible process and stumbled out of the bathroom. "Oh god. . ." This was more than he could take. The other ghosts had been ghosts to start, but Athena and Apollo had been alive. He'd seen them. They were just like him. And now. . .

"Don't worry." Apollo paused for a moment and his head twisted back to look at his boss. He gave an empty smile and assured the man, "I am fine," before turning back to his work.

"I almost feel bad." Phoenix didn't even flinch when Dahlia appeared next to him. "I just couldn't let him get in my way, though. He was so full of regrets too. If only he had known that his greatest misfortune was simply being associated with you and that stupid little cousin of mine."

"You killed them," Phoenix muttered, barely grasping the situation.

"Now, now. The girl killed herself," she corrected, bringing Athena's death back to his mind. "Mister Justice might have done the same, but somehow he figured out that I forged those letters." She ran her hand through her hair and let it fall onto her shoulder. "Such a pity. If he had still doubted you when he drowned, he would have been much more violent as a ghost. Oh well."

"You're a monster."

Dahlia brought her face close to Phoenix's and gave him an evil grin. "I am whatever I have to be to get my revenge, Feenie. Now, I'd better check on Maya. I'll see you soon."

She faded away, leaving Phoenix alone in his misery.

* * *

><p>The passage of time no longer had any meaning to Apollo. He couldn't understand what had happened or why he felt so cold, but all he knew was that he needed to keep busy. Keep his mind off of things. And cleaning the toilet for Phoenix seemed like a good distraction, so he kept at it.<p>

Eventually, Maya reached the apartment. He could hear her as she faced other ghosts with crueler intentions, but he couldn't even bring himself to help her. He just kept on scrubbing the toilet with whatever strength he still had, all the while reminding himself that he was fine.

When she found him, he tried to explain what had happened. He tried to warn her about Dahlia and the things that she might see around the old apartment, but the more he spoke, the more depressed he felt. He didn't want to think about all that. He just wanted to clean the toilet in peace. She seemed to recognize that and she left him alone.

He could tell when she left. The apartment became quiet again. It was like the other spirits were only stirring when there was someone living there to torment.

Living.

It finally hit Apollo that he wasn't living anymore. The thought was so overwhelming that he felt like it was suffocating him, snuffing out his very existence. "I am fine," he tried to assure himself as he scrubbed harder. "I am fine. . ."

"Apollo. . ."

The voice was painfully familiar to Apollo. Even in death, the voice of his dead friend brought back painful memories. He couldn't even bring himself to face Clay. "I . . . I am. . ." All he had to do was say that one four letter word and believe it like he always did. But he just couldn't. It wasn't true and he knew it.

"I'm. . . sorry."

Apollo knew that he was only a ghost, but he still trembled. The chill that he felt constantly gripped him with a new intensity as he came to terms with the truth. "I am so, so sorry. I should have been there. I should have saved you."

"No, Apollo. That's what I've been trying to tell you." He could feel Clay getting closer and it just made him go still. "You're not at fault, Apollo. How could you have known to be there? I've been trying to get you to understand that. Nobody blames you."

"But. . . I even accused my friend of being your killer. . . I put Athena through so much. . ."

"Athena doesn't blame you either. You were upset. It was only natural that you would try so hard to bring my killer to justice. And you did. Thank you."

Apollo finally set down his vest and closed his eyes. "How can I ask her to forgive me? How can I accept your death? I had seen you just before. . ."

Clay finally touched Apollo's shoulders and he could feel warmth at the touch. "Just ask," his old friend said kindly. "And you can't be fine all the time. It's okay. I won't blame you."

Apollo smiled slightly and brought up, "It's too late now. I'm dead. . . Dahlia killed me. . ."

"It's okay," Clay reassured him. "This time they figured it out. Just listen. . . Listen and open your eyes. . ."

"Listen? Listen for what?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

* * *

><p>The sudden cry seemed to shake every fiber of Apollo's being, and he jumped like he had been awaken from a bad dream. It took him a second to recognize his surroundings, but he definitely wasn't in the bathroom of an old apartment anymore. In face, he seemed to be back at the Anything Agency.<p>

"AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"

This cry was significantly closer to him, and it made him cringe. He looked up slightly at the chair that he was sitting next to to see Athena face to face with Simon Blackquill. After a moment of confusion, she practically tackled the poor man.

It wasn't until Athena mentioned a nightmare that he recalled his strange experience. "Some nightmare."

"Polly!" Before he could figure out what was going on, Trucy had her arms draped around his neck. "You're awake! You're finally awake!"

Apollo peeled her off carefully. "Actually, a part of me was kind of scared that I wouldn't wake up. That Dahlia girl killed me, but I was still trapped in that awful place."

Athena let go of Blackquill only to look back at Apollo and exclaim, "She got to me too. It was so awful. She. . ." Athena trailed off and looked pretty shaken up. Apollo could only imagine what Dahlia had done to her.

As things progressed, they discovered that there were quite a few shocking similarities between their nightmares, Larry woke up to claim he had similar problems, Phoenix and Edgeworth tried to explain what had actually happened to them, and they all realized that Maya was missing. After a strange scene with the Anything Agency's neighboring inspector (where Edgeworth acted stranger than anyone had ever seen him as he tried to communicate with a dog), they determined that Maya had to be downstairs and set off running.

Apparently that was the wrong choice, but Phoenix managed to save her from the last of Dahlia's wrath and things turned out okay in the end.

Not even all that shaken up by her experience, Maya quickly decided that she needed more hamburgers. It was nice to see her in high spirits, but he couldn't forget the things he had experienced in Dahlia's world.

"Come on, Apollo! Let's go get some burgers!" Athena started dragging him out by the arm before he could process everything, and as soon as they made it out of the apartment he stopped her. "Huh? What's up, slowpoke? We should hurry! You're one of the few people here with a car, you know."

"I . . . Can we step out on the roof for a minute?"

Noticing his urgency, Athena nodded and they both made their way up instead of down. Due to recent events they stayed very close to the door and far from the edge to talk. "What's on your mind?"

Apollo took a deep breath and dropped his head in a low bow. "I would like to ask for your forgiveness!"

Athena looked at him in shock and wondered, "For what?"

He kept his head down as he told her, "I should have never placed you on the stand for killing Clay. That was a terrible mistake that put you through quite a bit of stress. I'm so sorry for ever doubting you!"

"You can't be serious," Athena mumbled as she poked at his head.

"I am more than serious! Please, as long as you accept my apology—"

"No. I don't accept it and I won't forgive you." Apollo flinched at her harsh words, but kept his head down. "Your actions put Trucy in danger and made me relive some awful stuff in my past.

Apollo sighed and raised his head slowly. "Of course. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have expected anything more than this." Right as he opened his eyes, however, he felt a strong flick to his forehead. "Ow! What the heck?"

"I will, however, thank you for what you did," she said with a smile. "It's thanks to you and Aura that I was able to save Simon. So I won't accept your apology or forgive you because I'm grateful for what you did, you dolt. And how could I be upset? You only did what you thought you had to to find justice for your friend." She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head. "You may want to apologize to Trucy, though. I mean, she was stuck with Aura through that whole thing."

Apollo was surprised to find that Athena didn't blame him for anything. The guilt that had been wracking him was all in his head. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

And then thrown back on when Athena draped her arm over him. "Now, come on! We've got to go get burgers!"

Apollo laughed walked out with her feeling like a new man.

He knew that he couldn't always, but for now, he was feeling just fine.

* * *

><p><strong>AN ::**

**Shikola Krasno ::**

**Mein Gott, you would NOT believe how much trouble this story gave me. I was dumb enough to write it out loooong before we finished the Fatal Turnabout. In fact, the issue lied with the fact that I wrote it before the finalized version of Mia's letter to Godot was published. It was thanks to that letter that a significant portion of this story had to be entirely redone, which was upsetting because I was pretty attached to the whole thing. But I think I successfully kept the best parts and the changes helped to make the story better as a whole. So I guess everything worked out. Honestly, this was written WAY before Athena's story even came to mind. I only apologize that it took so long for me to fix.**

**So yeah! Poor Polly, am I right? Melody and I knew that he was going to drown. His appearance in Fatal Turnabout was based on a girl's head in the bathtub in Calling. She was one of the creepier ones to see; she just watched you from the water as her face slowly sank, all the while accompanied by an eerie ringing sound. But we saw bathroom and somehow thought of Apollo cleaning the bathroom at the Agency (the job that Phoenix seemed to pass on to anyone that he could). I'm only sorry that his death was so painful. We tried to come up with a reason behind the fact that, unlike Larry and Athena, he didn't attack the person who visited him. Melody figured that it would have to do with how they died. Larry was scared and frantic. Athena was violent and broken. So I figured that, in order to keep Polly from attacking, I'd have to kill him when his judgement wasn't clouded. Aaaand that still didn't save him from what might be the most brutal death scene yet.**

**But his story was still nice, right? Like how Athena resolved some feelings about Simon, Apollo finally got some closure for Clay. I hope you guys enjoyed it. And I made sure to put in a few easter eggs here and there (though it may never be brought up in the games again, I'd certainly like to point out that Polly and Trucy are siblings. . .).**

**I will try to write one more serious bit for this accompanying piece, and that will be Phoenix's story post Apollo's death. While it'd be nice to see what he was up to the entire time, that could go on way too long and too many things would be difficult to figure out. I'll try to clear up just hwat he was up to, though, as much as I am able. After that, though, anything that I write for this will likely be more on the comical side (or should I say, the Missile side?). Thanks for putting up with my angst!**

**Melody Canta :: **

**I'll be posting stuff soon! Actually, enjoy how sane this is, because the next stuff is weird and fun all at the same time. Anyways, not much to note here, but poor Polly. Everyone now knows that I'm too fond of this kid, but I feel bad, mostly because it was kind of my fault he ended up drowning and getting this written about him anyways.**


	3. GC :: The Therapy

**General Craziness :: The Therapy**

"Want to go out for lunch?" Phoenix asked, striding into the main area of the office. Maya and Apollo sat on the couch, and Athena was perched in the chair with some paperwork from her latest trial.

"Sure. Burgers?" Apollo asked, knowing what the spirit medium would request.

Athena wrinkled her nose. "Burgers again? This would be the third time in the last week."

"You say that like it's a problem," Maya said.

"Noodles?" Phoenix suggested.

"If they're from Eldoon's, I don't want anything to do with them," Apollo said. "Last time we went, I swear I couldn't taste for a week. Pretty sure all Mr. Eldoon does is empty a salt shaker into a bowl of water and add noodles."

Maya shuddered. "No noodles."

"How about sandwiches?" Athena asked. "There's this great place just down the street—"

"You know, Nick, I think I'll pass," Maya said suddenly. Her face was pale, and before anyone could stop her, she had rushed out of the room.

"That was strange," Apollo said, looking at the door she'd just exited from.

Phoenix scratched the back of his head. "You can say that again. Sandwiches, huh?" He racked his brain, but he couldn't think of a reason why sandwiches had thrown her off that badly. After all, the two of them had gone out for sandwiches loads of times when she was his assistant.

"Maybe something happened?" Athena asked. "She was scared."

"How do you become scared of sandwiches?" Apollo asked.

Phoenix waved them off. "Go get your sandwiches. I'm going to talk with her."

* * *

><p>Eventually, Phoenix managed to coax her out of the Wright Anything Agency with the promise of burgers and a visit to the Prosecutor's Office. They'd been going every day since their entry into Dahlia's spirit world, since it seemed like a bad idea to leave Edgeworth alone with his thoughts. The man always looked impressively excited to see Maya, which tickled the spirit medium to no end, but Edgeworth's enthusiasm at his own presence was limited. He assumed it must have been that "fate worse than death" thing and tried not to take it personally.<p>

"Hey, want to grab a burger?" Phoenix asked as they entered the High Prosecutor's office, stopping suddenly when they saw Edgeworth. "Um, are we interrupting something?"

Edgeworth glanced up from his papers. "No. Why would you ask?"

Maya stared at Phoenix, waiting for him to say something. Eventually, the Defense Attorney cleared his throat, leaning back on his heels. "New look?"

Edgeworth cocked an eyebrow before looking down at his outfit. The blue suit had a classic cut, much like his magenta suit did, and he still sported the cravat. "I suppose. Just felt like a change."

In all of the years he'd known Edgeworth as a prosecutor, never had the man changed the suit. "Ah. Uh, it looks good."

"Thank you." Edgeworth set down his pen, rising. "Now, you mentioned lunch?"

"Yeah, we were just going to grab a burger," Maya said with a smile. "Want to come?"

"Just a moment." Edgeworth glanced around his desk before grabbing a flashlight off the top and sticking it in his briefcase. "Alright, shall we?"

"A flashlight?" Phoenix asked.

Edgeworth regarded him over the top of his glasses. "Indeed. You never know when the power might go out."

Phoenix and Maya exchanged glances but said nothing.

* * *

><p>"Pearly's coming to town soon," Maya announced, munching on her burger happily.<p>

"Maybe we should do something special for her, seeing as she came back to that situation last time she was in town," Phoenix suggested.

Edgeworth chuckled. "Planning something special early? Wright? I don't see that happening anytime soon."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Phoenix asked.

"Just that every time you've had some sort of celebration, it's either been last minute or not planned by you."

"Hey! That's not true!" Phoenix leaned back, furrowing his brow. "Um . . . Maya's 21st birthday!"

"Nick, you took me to England because of that attorney exchange program," Maya said. "And on the day of my 21st birthday, we got sucked into Labyrinthia, so I don't remember most of it."

Phoenix laughed nervously. "Uh, right, right." He looked down at his fries. "Trucy's first magic show?"

"If you'll remember correctly, _I_ planned that one," Edgeworth groused. "While you took all the credit."

"Well, I'll just plan this one! We can have it at the office—"

"No." Maya sounded firm, and for a moment, he thought he'd just imagined her speaking.

"No?"

She shook her head. "Pearly is no longer allowed in the building."

"Maya, that's ridiculous," Phoenix tried to convince her, but she shook her head adamantly. "Okay, where should we have it then?"

"How about the park?" she suggested.

Edgeworth glanced at the weather outside, and Phoenix stared at her. "Maya, it's been raining pretty hard recently."

"How about Mr. Edgeworth's house then?"

He looked at her, horrified. "No!"

Phoenix, however, knew that this was about as reasonable as Maya was going to get. "Please, Edgeworth?"

"No!"

"Come on, your house is huge! What's the problem?"

"If you think I'm just going to hand my house over—"

Maya waved them off. "It's okay, Nick. We'll find somewhere else."

"I think it would still be easier if we did it at the office."

"No."

Edgeworth raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, and Phoenix shrugged in confusion.

* * *

><p>"So, what're we doing here, Nick?" Larry asked, looking up at Ivy University with a cocked eyebrow. "Thought you were out of college already."<p>

"I am! Larry, I've defended you in court several times now; obviously I'm out of college." Phoenix stuck his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. "I just wanted to talk to a faculty member here."

"About what?"

"Maya and Edgeworth have both been acting a little weird . . . and pretty much everyone else who got sucked into the Abyss is acting weird. So, I wanted some advice on whether we should be investing in therapy or not."

Larry looked over at his childhood friend. "Nick, if we needed therapy, we'd have started looking a long time ago."

"We've probably all needed therapy for that long," Phoenix muttered under his breath.

"Besides, isn't Athena a psychologist or something?"

"That's it! Larry, you're a genius!" Phoenix suddenly froze. "That was _not_ something I ever thought I'd say in my lifetime."

"Ex-squeeze me?"

"We'll just have Athena run therapy sessions! After all, we're all friends, right?" He pulled out his cell phone, rolling his eyes at the background. "And Maya's been playing around with my phone again. I knew there had to be something up when she shoved it into my hands as I was running out the door."

"Ooh, wonder what picture she used this time?" Larry asked, taking the phone. After a quick look, he screamed, dropping the phone and running in the opposite direction.

Phoenix stared. "What the hell is wrong with everybody?"

* * *

><p>"You owe me a new phone." Phoenix dropped the remnants of his broken phone into the spirit medium's lap before collapsing on the couch next to her.<p>

"Geez, what happened?"

Phoenix ran his hands over his face. "Something about your picture of Sister Bikini as my background made Larry flip. Next thing I knew, he was calling me from halfway across town trying to get home before realizing that we'd taken a taxi together and he had no money. Like normal."

"But he called you," she said.

He nodded. "And then when I pulled out my phone to call Apollo to tell him I'd be late back to the office, Larry flipped again and this time sent it flying against a building. It didn't survive that one."

"Ouch."

"Wonder why Sister Bikini upset him so much?"

"Yeah, she just looks so nice! With that jolly smile all the time, I figured she'd cheer you right up!" Maya grinned widely, and Phoenix glanced at her.

"You think I need cheering up?"

She looked down. "You're worrying about people, Nick, I can tell."

"You guys just aren't acting normal," he said simply. "I want to help."

Maya put on her smile again, and he recognized it as the one she had worn after her mother's death. "We'll be fine, Nick! We just need some time, that's all."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Besides, you shouldn't be worrying about me. We're partners, right?"

The word gave him a jolt, and he stared at her. "P—Partners?"

"Yeah? Nick, are you okay? You look kinda pale."

"I'm fine!" he said, suddenly jumping up. "I just realized I left the oven on!" he said as he rushed out of the room.

Maya watched him leave. "And _we're_ the ones acting weird?" she asked after a minute, shaking her head.

* * *

><p>"Okay, that's it!" Athena said, glaring at the room full of people. Everyone the night of Maya's party, plus Pearl and Edgeworth, were in attendance, and she'd had it with the weird vibe coming from the group. "What is everyone's problem?"<p>

"There's no problem, Athena," Phoenix said. "The party's just starting. Let it warm up a bit."

"No! Everyone's weird right now! Mr. Wright, you introduced Apollo and I as your 'law people-you-work-with' to a client the other day! Mr. Butz screamed at the sight of Junie in her school uniform, Maya had a thirty-five minute chat with Missile from next door despite the fact that he's a dog, and Mr. Edgeworth has been flipping every light on in his house and mumbling about how there's no flashlights!"

"That last one might be my fault," Maya said.

Apollo looked at her. "Is that why we're at Mr. Edgeworth's house and not at the office?"

"Ooh, what happened?" Trucy asked.

Phoenix groaned. "We took Edgeworth out for lunch, and on the way back, Maya grabbed his flashlight and turned off the lights in his office. Suffice it to say, Edgeworth did not take it well."

"In any case, it's obvious that it started somewhere!" Athena said, cutting off the conversation before it could get started. "Obviously, everyone's still on edge over what happened in the spirit world."

"Is that why you're constantly texting Blackquill?" Apollo asked.

He received a punch on the arm for that one.

"I mean, anyone could tell that there's something wrong! Right, Pearl?"

Pearl nodded. "It has seemed a little weird," she said, biting her thumbnail. "But Mystic Maya seems okay, so . . ."

"Mr. Wright has been avoiding Maya for the last couple days," Athena said.

Immediately, the familiar fire rose in Pearl's eyes, and she stomped over to Phoenix, who cowered in the corner. "Pearls, it's not what you think—" he tried to explain.

It only earned him a red handprint on his face.

"Obviously we all need to sit down and talk about what happened," Athena continued.

Apollo cocked an eyebrow. "Like therapy?"

Her expression lit up. "YES! That's it! We'll hold therapy sessions! Once a week, at the Wright Anything Agency!"

"This is going to be a total waste of time," Edgeworth mumbled under his breath.

"But I've got to go back to Kurain," Pearl protested. "And Mystic Maya does too!"

"I'll be fine, Pearly! I'll just stay with Nick for a while! No one will know!"

Trucy blinked. "Aren't you the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique?"

Maya shrugged. "Eh, details."

"Now that we're all decided, let's get back to the party!"

Almost immediately, Apollo went up to Athena. "And what do you think this is going to accomplish?"

She flashed him a grin. "At the best, everyone will get back to normal. At the worst . . . uh, some traumatic childhood events may resurface?"

"Oh yes, nothing could go wrong with that plan," he said sarcastically.

* * *

><p>"Welcome to the first therapy session," Athena said, putting a bowl of potato chips on the center table.<p>

"Why the chips?" Phoenix asked.

She smiled. "People talk better when they're not hungry. This way, you can snack and talk at the same time."

"Ooh, food!" Larry said, falling on the bowl. Within seconds, it was gone.

"Aaaaaaaaand I'll get some more," she said, taking the bowl back into the kitchen.

"Just bring out the bags," Phoenix advised as Maya sat on the couch next to him. "Otherwise you'll spend all night making trips to the kitchen."

"Bags? I only brought one," she said, her eyes wide, the half-empty bag in her hand.

"Welcome to the Hunger Games," he muttered. Maya and Larry took their stances as Athena dropped the bag on the table, both pouncing at the same time. After a quick fight and some bitten fingers, Maya ended up with the bag, munching away happily.

Edgeworth arrived, and Apollo answered the door before taking a seat in the armchair, leaving Edgeworth to sit next to Larry.

"Looks like everyone's here," Athena said, smoothing her hair behind her ear. "So, does anyone want to talk about what sort of problems they've been having recently?"

The silence was deafening.

"Um, okay. Uh," she cast an eye around the group before making an apologetic face at Apollo. "Apollo, you were talking to Clay earlier, weren't you?"

"Was Maya channeling again?" Phoenix asked.

If looks could kill, Athena would have been dead. "No," Apollo said. "I was talking to my picture frame after I dusted it off."

"I don't see what's so strange about that," Maya said.

"This is just a colossal waste of time." Edgeworth crossed one leg over the other.

The room went silent again.

"Maya! There's noise in your heart!" Athena shouted, trying again.

Maya smiled. "Nope, I'm okay!"

"But . . . sandwiches!"

"What about them?"

"Ugh!" Athena threw her hands up. "And you, Mr. Wright!"

"What about me?"

She put her hands on her hips. "You should talk about your problems!"

"I don't have any problems. Would you like to share something, Athena?"

"No!" she groaned in irritation. "You're supposed to share something!"

"Well, my girlfriend dumped me yesterday," Larry said slowly.

"PERFECT!" Athena crowed before suddenly realizing what that sounded like. "Uh, I mean, tell us about it."

* * *

><p>Three and a half hours later, Maya's head was lolled against Phoenix's shoulder, drooling as she slumbered. His eyelids were starting to droop as he listened to Larry's simpering. Edgeworth was miming "kill me," and Apollo was trying to covertly play games on his phone.<p>

"Uh, Larry, maybe we should save some for next week," Athena finally said, cutting him off.

"But I was just about to tell you about my new girl, Nastya!"

"Next week."

Edgeworth groaned. "Please no more of this."

"Next week. Same time, same place. Be there, Mr. Edgeworth, or I'll tell Inspector Cabanela not to let you see Missile." Athena glared at him, and suddenly, he sat up.

"Next week, right."

"Why do I put up with you people?" Apollo grumbled, and Phoenix shot him a sympathetic look.

"At least they're not being hosted at your house. This is _not _what I had planned," he said, already cringing at the idea of next week's meeting.

* * *

><p><strong>AN ::**

**Shikola Krasno ::**

**The whole idea of therapy started with jokes about how Edgeworth would react to things after his experience. I mean, they all probably needed therapy long before we got our hands on them, but we may have taken things a little too far at times. In our little ideas they would sit in a circle and pretty much not say anything because they're all too stubborn. Edgeworth would continue to say little things like, "We don't speak of this," or "No. Just plain no," while everyone would try to guess at why he was so pissed at Phoenix.**

**Well that developed into actual ideas for therapy, since we still wanted to incorporate the picture messages that you can get with certain deaths in the game. Figured we'd play with those by making them come up during therapy and that quickly evolved into a good way to put in many alternate scenes through dreams (you're going to love what Melody's cooked up for those). So yes! The associates of the Anything Agency are finally getting their long needed therapy! No, it's not going to be overly helpful, but at least they'll have each other, right?**

**Melody Canta ::**

**Just as a clarification, I wrote this chapter, and it's only indicative of what's to come. **

**Actually, what's to come is crazier at times, so . . . **

**Ditto to what Shikola said. I'm mostly going to be working with Edgeworth, since I didn't get to work with him before and he's one of my favorites (and well, he just gets himself worked up! It's hilarious!), but other characters will be here too, with angst, humor, lots of crack, and probably a very different side of writing than most of you have seen from us.**


	4. GC :: The Severing

**Alternate Route :: The Severing**

**Semi-angsty, semi-humor. Depends on whether you get the joke with Daryan's haircut.**

**This takes place when Edgeworth finds the door covered in noodles after hearing Larry scream at the dollmaker's house.**

* * *

><p>"Just hold on, Larry," Edgeworth murmured, his fingertips gliding over wet, crusting noodles. He immediately pulled his hand back, making a face as he wiped the mystery liquid on his slacks. He needed to find a way to free Larry, and that would mean breaking him out of this room. He needed something sharp, something that would break through the noodles so that he could open the door.<p>

He hadn't seen any knives around.

He closed his eyes, trying to think logically. Where could he find something?

Larry's Room?

The hotel?

The hair salon?

The scissors! Of course! Quickly, he pulled out the phone, dialing Franziska's number as quickly as he could.

_997-684-771._

The world faded around him, and he instinctively closed his eyes as the semi-claustrophobic feeling of transportation surrounded him, only opening his eyes once the breeze faded and he could feel cool tile against his cheek.

Cool tile.

Filthy tile.

He shot up, coming face to face with a wig head staring at him before getting to his feet and backing away quickly. This was the hair salon, alright. He clicked on his flashlight, finding the familiar phone on the table and readjusting his jacket before going any farther. As soon as he was composed (and had decided not to drop kick the random wig head; after all, he'd never been good at kicking anything and he had a feeling that he'd somehow hit it against the whiteboard against the wall and it would ricochet back to hit him in the face. It was just that kind of day), he opened the door to the lounge, making quick strides to the salon floor.

The cart where the scissors had been resting when he was last there was in the same place, but the scissors themselves were absent. He checked under all of the hair tools, under the cart, around it . . . nothing. No scissors.

"Well, now what?" he asked, throwing his hands up in the air. He had seen no other sharp implements since waking up in Larry's Room. How was he supposed to free Larry?

There was a sound behind him, and he threw a glance over his shoulder before freezing and turning fully around.

He'd found the scissors.

Unfortunately, they were clutched in the hands of one Franziska von Karma, who was currently crawling out of the mirror.

What?

Was he on the set of some horror movie?

She hauled herself out, sliding across the tiny counter before slithering onto the floor, a maniacal smile on her face. He knew something was wrong the minute he heard her laugh. Sure, she'd perfected the presumptuous chuckle over the years, but this was a full-on evil cackle. High-pitched, uneven, and accompanied by a crazed look in her eyes.

"Franziska?" he asked, backing up instinctively as she got to her feet. Even the way she stood was different. Whereas the Franziska he knew stood to her full height, shoulders squared, all in an attempt to make herself look larger and more intimidating, this Franziska was slumped, back slightly hunched, the scissors almost slipping from her grasp. "Franziska, are you alright?"

She brandished the scissors at him, her grip tightening as she pointed the tip towards him with another laugh.

And then she thrust forward.

The point missed him by mere inches as he threw himself against the divider between the salon floor and the front desk. She collided with the cart, but rather than things falling, it seemed that she had gone right through it, recovering quickly.

He wasn't going to wait around for her if she was going to be like this.

He sprinted around the divider, his shoes sliding against the linoleum. He blinked, grabbing the counter for balance, and in that space of time where he had dared to close his eyes, she appeared in front of him, her hand clutching his arm, holding him still.

He couldn't move.

Why couldn't he move?

His breath heavy in his throat, he watched her arm snap back, the scissors at the ready. The minute she started laughing, she pushed forward, the tool piercing into his belly, unhindered by the layers of vest and dress shirt. The pain was blinding, causing him to cry out, the entire world starting to fade around him as he bled onto the floor.

* * *

><p>Edgeworth awoke with a start. This wasn't the first time he had dreamt about the Mnemonic Abyss, as he had taken to calling it, but this was the first time he could remember dreaming about Franziska. To be honest, his adopted sister had been one of the most frightening things about the entire place, if only because she had been unhinged the entire time. At least Athena had had her moments of clarity. The entire time he had seen her, Franziska von Karma was crazed, wielding a pair of scissors much like she wielded her whip.<p>

But no, he had to remind himself. He had managed to get the scissors, and though he had been too late to save Larry, he hadn't been too late to save Maya from jumping off of the roof of the Wright Anything Agency.

A glass of water, and then he would go back to bed. He wasn't about to let a simple nightmare keep him from a good night's sleep.

* * *

><p>He was in the salon again, this time starting on the salon floor. Goddammit. He was going to get the scissors for Larry if it was the last thing he did. He rose from the floor, immediately going for the office.<p>

Franziska had scissors? Fine. He was going to have to fight fire with fire. There had to be something in here he could use to fend her off.

The wig heads were still on the floor, and he contemplated strapping one to his chest. Could she really stab through that? He touched a hand to his stomach, feeling the warmth of the soft belly beneath it radiate through his shirt. He wasn't exactly ready to have that pierced through again.

But if he wore it, he would surely look ridiculous.

Did it really matter if he looked ridiculous, as long as he was alive? Besides, she was a ghost; who was she going to tell?

He picked up the nearest head—the one with the torpedo hair—, shucked the hair to the floor, and tucked the head under his arm. It would be better to have his hands free. He needed to find something to tape it to himself.

A quick glance around the room showed no adhesives. He went to the lockers, hoping to find a random roll of duct tape in the bottom of one. The two closest to the wall were empty, and he reached for Franziska's locker only to scream when he saw the undone blonde wig head with glasses staring up at him. For a moment, it had looked like a severed head.

. . . Could she remove his head with scissors?

He gulped.

Still, no tape in there either. The last locker was similarly empty. He took another moment to rifle through the fridge, very much aware how unlikely it was that he would find tape in there, and still came up empty. He had nothing.

Maybe he could get her to stab the head hard enough to get the scissors stuck. Was that possible? In any case, he was out of options. Franziska would likely still crawl out of the mirror and at least this way he had something between him and the sharp point.

He took a deep breath, holding the wig head in front of him before turning the knob and stepping back into the salon floor. It was quiet, perhaps too quiet. Now that he knew what was coming, the silence felt heavy and foreboding.

He crept forward, one eye on the mirror.

Nothing.

He kept staring at it, ready for her to crawl out.

Nada.

Was it possible? Had the scissors miraculously found their way home? He scrambled towards the tray, only to stop when he realized they weren't there.

A cackle came from behind him.

Nononononononono. He turned back around, the scissors plunging into the forehead of the wig head. He yelped, trying to step back. Her crazed yellow eyes bored holes into his, maniacal laughter never stopping. She was much too close! He dropped the foam head, but it seemed to be stuck to the end of the scissors, so it didn't go far.

Well, it had worked. Now all he needed to do was to get the head back.

He blanched as she stepped back to thrust again. Easier said than done.

He darted around her, trying to figure out what to do. He couldn't stay; Franziska would kill him if he did. But Larry needed help, and to get to him, Edgeworth needed the scissors! And if he left and she disappeared with the scissors again, he'd be back at square one.

She lunged again and he stepped to the side. There was no way he was taking his eyes off of her this time. He eased around the divider, creeping back towards the office. If this was going to go much longer, he wanted another Styrofoam head between them.

She thrust at him, with enough force to send her careening into the wall. The head took the brunt of the impact, splitting in half and sliding off of the scissors as she flicked her wrist downwards.

Oh shit.

She started to lumber towards him and he panicked, running towards the office and slamming the door. He would have mere seconds to hide before she phased through the door . . .

There was the distinct sound of something scraping against the wood,

He approached the door cautiously, wary of her suddenly bursting through. The hinges rattled with the force of her attacks, but she didn't emerge.

She couldn't get through the door.

He sighed in relief, relaxing. Hopefully she would drop the scissors once she was tired of hounding on the divider between them.

She continued her attacks for several minutes, but then again, that was Franziska. She could never give up once she had lost. Eventually, the noises slowed and then stopped altogether. The room was silent.

It was the moment of truth. Had she dropped the scissors? He opened the door, only to have it yanked from his hand. He dimly registered it hitting the wall as he stared into yellow eyes.

Oh shit.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

Her hand dug into his jacket lapel, keeping him still while her other arm snapped up, scissors in hand . . .

* * *

><p>"These therapy sessions are really cutting into my time to woo Nastya," Larry said, collapsing on the opposite couch. Edgeworth kicked him in response. His eyelids felt heavy, his entire body exhausted. He hadn't felt this bad since they had escaped from the Mnemonic Abyss. Then again, last night had felt like he was still in it, with the constant dreams of Franziska.<p>

"I don't know, I think they're kind of fun." Athena put a bowl of potato chips on the coffee table, seating herself at the chair at the head of the table. "Besides, it feels good to get it off your chest, doesn't it?"

"I suppose," Maya said. Edgeworth had expected her to be far more enthusiastic about these get-togethers, but then again, the Mnemonic Abyss had been her worst nightmare. She'd seen some things that he could imagine she didn't want to share.

"Okay, who wants to go first?" Athena asked, everyone finally assembled. Phoenix, Larry, and Apollo sat on one couch, and he and Maya shared the other. They were all silent. Athena looked at each of them in turn before she suddenly stood, pointing at him. "Mr. Edgeworth! You have noise in your heart! Share it with us!" she shouted. Everyone else in the room instinctively recoiled.

"Trucy just went to bed," Phoenix reminded her sharply.

She had the sense to look abashed. "Sorry." Still, her gaze didn't waver. "So, Mr. Edgeworth?'

He shivered, Franziska's dead eyes suddenly at the forefront of his mind. His cell phone vibrated and he sighed in relief. Saved by the bell. "Excuse me," he said, rising. It was a picture message from an unfamiliar number. He hesitated, wondering if it was Oldbag, but the subject line wasn't anything that said "Edgey-poo," so he figured he was probably safe.

He opened the message, shouting in surprise and throwing his cell phone halfway across the room. The image was now burned into his mind. It was him, slumped over in a salon chair, fluorescent light glinting off of his bald head.

"Edgeworth?" Maya asked, standing to retrieve his phone. He fell back onto the couch as she studied the picture. "What the hell is that?"

"What's wrong?" Apollo asked.

"Edgeworth got a picture message," Maya said, snatching the phone away from him before he could stop her.

Larry sighed, already having anticipated what the picture was of. "Edgey, such a lady killer. To have them sending you pictures of—"

"What are you talking about?" Phoenix asked, pushing up from the couch. He caught a glimpse of the picture and grimaced. "So, is this one of those therapy sessions that needs tequila?"

"Looks like Edgeworth might have had a few too many already," Athena chuckled.

Larry finally pulled the phone away from Maya, his face contorting in disgust when he finally saw the picture. "Duuuuuuuuude! The hell?" He pulled on Edgeworth's hair, which resulted in him getting a very firm whack from the Prosecutor.

Phoenix abruptly stood. "Okay, I need something stronger than grape juice, and then we are going to drink until we forget that image." He swept his gaze over the remaining people in the room, faltering when he saw Athena. "And . . . you're gonna have to deal with juice because we have four lawyers in the room and I don't need to go to jail for supplying alcohol to a minor."

Athena spluttered, attempting every argument she could think of to wheedle her way into a shot of tequila.

Suddenly, a sharp pain at the back of his head made Edgeworth jump, slapping away whatever had just pulled his hair. "Larry, it's not a wig!" he snapped. "And will you please give me back my phone?"

"Geez, Edgey, you don't have to get so worked up." Larry, who oddly enough was right in front of him, tossed the phone back to the pink-suited prosecutor. If it hadn't been Larry, then . . . Maya? No, she was still right beside him on the couch. Then who—?

Apollo suddenly rounded back across the room, settling back into the chair and staring off into a corner of the room guiltily.

* * *

><p>The Severing - End<p>

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

**Shikola Krasno ::**

**I cannot even begin to explain why these blunders were so funny to us, but if you'd seen us while they happened you'd have thought we'd seen the funniest thing in the world. And yes, these are both possible ways to die in Calling (the head thing was just Melody's fun since one of the things that seemed to creep Edgy out the most were those heads). Look away from the hair lady and she reappears much closer to stab you, and touch the knob to the door before she's gone to have it go flying open as she stabs you again.**

**This is why we don't let Melody's curiosity get the better of her.**

**The other neat thing, though, is that if you get killed by the hair lady after beating the game once, you get a picture message on your wii of a bald Makoto sitting in a salon chair, very much dead. What a delightfully morbid game, right? Anywho, credit where credit is due: Melody wrote this. Her designated job for this side story is to write all of the deaths that either earned a picture message or that just plain amused her. This is pretty much my chance to add angst and her chance to add amusing deaths (everything in between is just us having a little too much fun. . .).**

**Melody Canta ::**

**Because I think there needs to be a Polly/Edgeworth bromance. **

**Oh god, this is my favorite death in Calling. I don't think I've laughed that hard at a game since we got to hear Kanji's Persona self in Persona 4. This one I can't take too much credit for, since it's mostly what happened in the game (minus the wig head. Anyone else get my joke there? No? I probably should have left the wig on . . .), but it was too much fun for me to change.**

**Also, a bald Edgeworth is an oddly scary thought. Seriously, the man needs hair.**


	5. GC :: The Misadventures of Missile

**The Misadventures of Missile; The Less Than Plausible Explanations for Missile's Actions in The Fatal Turnabout (Disclaimer: Some stories DO tie into the Fatal Turnabout, but some are just alternate scenes or crack stories)  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Question: How did Missile even end up in the Abyss?<strong>

**Answer:** Phoenix's door didn't keep the power of the black magatama from taking him in, so why would the ceiling keep its power from reaching Missile in the apartment above? For sake of argument, let's say that Inspector Cabanella was away on some late night adventure—most of Ghost Trick took place in one night, after all—and just happened to miss out on all of this madness (could you imagine him dancing through the Mnemonic Abyss? I think that'd be a bit much).

**Scenario :: The Abandonment  
><strong>

"Well Missile, got a call about a cool cat who's been sleeping at the local park even though it closes to the public at eight. Should be an easy case, but paperwork might keep me out. I heard that the lawyer neighbors are throwing a party. If they cause any trouble, just start yapping at them to warn them, okay?"

Missile gave a reassuring yap to his master, but didn't understand a word he had said. Sometimes the little guy missed being a ghost. When he was a ghost, somehow he could understand everything that the humans said. But he certainly didn't want to become the lamp that Sissel knew, so he stayed content living with the old inspector.

"Okay boy. See me off with a little dance?"

There were a select few human words that Missile understood: food, treat, walk, and hello were the ones that he knew before coming into Cabanela's care. But after he spent some time with the inspector, he quickly picked up on another one: dance.

The man started spinning, so Missile hopped up on his feet and twirled around as much as he could through his master's entire exit dance. When the door closed and Missile was left alone, he put his front paws back down and stumbled around as he waited for the world to catch up with his eyes.

Then the usual fear of abandonment set in and he whine and pawed at the door until he felt certain that Cabanela was gone forever, leaving poor Missile to his own devices (this occurred, of course, about five minutes after the inspector left).

Missile's first priority was to find food. After pawing at cupboards, doors, and the big cold box that Cabanela always pulled food from, Missile gave up and came to terms with the fact that he would starve long before anyone would find him (this search lasted for a whole six minutes, because food always takes up more space in a dog's mind than a person does).

Even though he was doomed to die alone from starvation, Missile still had his uncontrollable desire to say hello to something. If he could just do that, he felt that he could be happy. So, he bounced around on the magical block that Cabanela used to turn on the nose-box until the screen flashed on with the face of a shiny samurai as he fought to protect his pink princess. Missile's tail started wagging rapidly and he let loose and barked at the box to his heart's content (this went on for a whole hour, for nothing is more important to Missile than saying hello to anything that moves).

It started to get dark outside and Missile started to wear out a bit. He took a brief break to lap up some of the water that Cabanela had kindly left him to die with—because god forbid he should have left any food. Feeling refreshed and renewed, he walked back over to the comfy pillow to re-situate himself and resume his barking.

But suddenly he stumbled and fell asleep without any warning.

Missile woke up to Sissel's paw in his face. He snapped up quickly, tail wagging, and yelped out, "HELLO!"

"Gah! Should have been prepared for that." Sissel rubbed his paw over his ears and shuddered.

Missile didn't recognize the problem with saying hello, but when he glanced about the area he noticed that there was no familiar cooling box, no comfy pillow, no water dish, and no noisy box. In fact, there was nothing but white. Missile whined and asked, "Did we die again?"

Sissel cocked his head a little and said, "I don't think so. I was climbing up the fire escape to your place when I suddenly passed out . . . actually, I may have fallen because of that. . . So _I_ might be dead, but that doesn't explain you."

"Master abandoned me to die of starvation. . . It must have happened!" Missile decided.

Sissel rolled his eyes and said, "How many times do I have to tell you? When people leave the house, they usually do so with the intention of coming back. And I just saw you this morning, so there's no way that you died of starvation in that short amount of time."

"You're not dead." The furry friends looked up at the woman who appeared from nowhere. "I'm sorry. It's my cousin's fault that you're here."

"HELLO!" Sissel winced when Missile started yapping without any hesitation.

The woman smiled warmly and said, "Hello to you too, little fellow."

Missile looked at Sissel as he realized, "She understood me!"

"And you understood her, you idiot. Maybe we really are dead again."

The woman shook her head and got down on her knees to bring herself closer to their eye level. "Don't worry. You're not really dead, but you are in a dead-like state."

That was all Missile needed to hear to try out his old ghost trick. He immediately sent himself into the woman's necklace. "Sissel, look! I'm a rock!"

"Missile, that's rude. Come back here."

The woman seemed astonished by what she saw. "I could tell that you both had incredible spiritual strength, but that was amazing. This must be why I can speak to you so easily. You mentioned having been dead before?"

Sissel smiled sheepishly and told her, "That's a long story."

Missile hopped out of the woman's necklace and turned back into his furry self to say, "We died near a meteor and then went through time to fix it!"

The woman just smiled and said, "Can I rely on your help then? I think you two will be the only ones who might be able to protect my friends. Will you help me?"

"I like helping people!"

Sissel rolled his eyes but told her, "Well, if we're not actually dead then I guess there can't be much harm in using our ghosts tricks. So, sure. Why not?"

**A/N :: Shikola Krasno ::**

**Missile is and always will be my favorite part of this story. He also had the strangest rule set, however, so I'm going to use these little stories to answer all questions that Melody and I came up with for how Missile operates in The Fatal Turnabout. Some of my answers may be a bit more informative (this one was mostly me having fun playing with Missile's perspective while giving an explanation for how he and Sissel ended up in the Abyss), but most of them will just end up as some random BS with accompanying unnecessary but comical scenes.**

**A brief explanation for this one: for those of you who only know Missile from his adventures in our story, he _is_ from an actual game called: Ghost Trick. Let's just say that, if you've played Ghost Trick, the odd little discussion Missile and Sissel had would make more sense. For those of you who haven't, Missile and Sissel both had the ability move their souls into any inanimate objects that could contain them. In Missile's case, he could switch the objects with any others nearby that shared the same shape (size and weight weren't an issue). In Sissel's case, he could make whatever object he was possessing move in some way (example: make a tire roll or a TV turn on). In this way they may have been very useful in the Mnemonic Abyss.**

**A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**I will never not laugh at rock jokes, so I lost it when Missile becomes the rock. Yes, I'm dumb.**

* * *

><p><strong>Question: How does Missile travel around the Abyss so easily? No other ghosts seem to have his kind of mobility.<strong>

**Answer: **Missile's "Ghost Trick" ability allowed him to project his soul into inanimate objects. It would be simple for him to project himself into, say, Edgeworth's "pocket papers," or Maya's magatama. Then He'd just travel with them (in Sissel's case, he could just possess the cell phones and transport by using them). This ability would also explain how Missile disappeared so often. It wasn't that he was making like the ghosts and vanishing. He was actually just hiding in various objects that were nearby (I'm sure Mia explained to them that they _could_ die in the Abyss, so it was likely for precautionary measures that he hid so often).

**Scenario :: The Hiding  
><strong>

Mister Ruffles had given Missile a simple enough job: bark if he sensed a ghost nearby so that Ruffles could have some warning. How hard could that be?

But when the students showed up Missile yapped his head off in a panic and quickly hid in his friend's glasses. Seeing everything as it happened from that perspective both terrified Missile and made him feel bad for not helping, so he felt the need to make it up to Mister Ruffles in any way that he could.

Unfortunately, every time that he tried to help, he seemed to lead his fancy friend into more trouble.

Moral: even the purest intentions can backfire when you're in a purgatory created by a really angry girl.

**A/N :: Shikola Krano ::**

**Hey, it works as a nice little explanation! Why does it need a moral? Why not.**

**A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**Oh, Missile.**

* * *

><p><strong>Question: Okay, so Missile wasn't really a ghost. That explains why he couldn't float. But then how did he go through doors?<strong>

**Answer: **Again, Missile's "Ghost Trick" saves the day! Missile didn't actually go _through_ the doors. He simply _became_ the doors, then put himself on the other side.

**Scenario :: The Trick  
><strong>

"So we don't really want them to know that we're not ghosts because then they'll start asking questions that will only delay them from confronting the scary lady. Got it?"

Missile nodded enthusiastically then sat down and asked, "How should we do that?"

Sissel winked at him. "We just need to disappear and go through stuff, like this." He walked towards a door as a demonstration, then disappeared through it. "Now you try," he said from the other side.

Not fully grasping what Sissel had done, Missile took a running start at the door and slammed right into it head first. When that didn't work, he quickly resorted to whining and scratching at it.

Sissel reappeared behind him and sighed at the pitiful display. "You idiot. Get close to the door, possess it, then go back to being a dog on the other side."

"Oh. . . Right!" Missile ran at it again, hit his head on it, then did as Sissel told him. On the other side of the door he started to whine again. "Maybe I shouldn't run so fast?"

Sissel just rolled his eyes.

**A/N :: Shikola Krasno ::**

**Y'know. . . Sissel probably had to put up with at lot of this sort of thing. No wonder he had such a short fuse with the humans. . .**

**A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**It's stuff like this that makes me love Missile more. He was so determined to help that he probably got brain damage from a lot of this . . .**

* * *

><p><strong>Question: Missile is quite the speedy little puppy. Now that it's been confirmed that he wasn't really a ghost, what was keeping him from tripping while running around so much?<br>**

**Answer:** Have you ever seen a little dog stumble? If your answer is no, then stop watching your dumb cat videos and look up some stumbling puppies! Aside from being possibly the cutest thing on the face of the earth, it's also really, REALLY hard not to laugh at.

**Scenario :: The Fall**

"This way Mister Ruffles!"

Edgeworth was having a hard time keeping up with his new companion as he chased the little dog around the school hallway. As they rounded each corner, the man had to slide across the floor (he certainly hoped that his suede shoes wouldn't be affected outside of this strange world) and regain his footing before running again. Missile's enthusiasm was refreshing, but at this rate Edgeworth was worried that the dog might induce a heart attack sooner than the ghosts.

The Pomeranian stopped when it reached the stairs down to the next floor, and barked a couple times to hurry Edgeworth up. "Come on! I can smell them just down here!"

Missile only waited until the man drew close before shooting off down the stairs, but his stubby little paws didn't quite keep pace with his body, he slipped on one of the steps, let out a confused yelp, and proceeded to tumble and roll down the stairs until he reached the bottom where he flailed around in a panic to get his paws back underneath him.

Once he had righted himself and gotten over the shock, he shook his head and smiled. "Whoa! Did you see that, Mister Ruffles?"

Indeed Edgeworth had. In fact, he had stopped at the top of the stairs and was now clinging to the railing while doubled over, desperately trying to stifle his laughter. "Be strong, man. . . This is serious. . . No. . . time. . . to be. . . laughing. . ." Edgeworth never let people see him so perturbed, but he simply couldn't keep his composure any longer and he fell to the floor, laughing.

Missile pulled his tail between his hind legs and whined. "Mister Ruffles? It wasn't that funny, was it?"

But the poor man couldn't help himself and just kept rolling around on the floor, certain that he would be the first ghost in the Abyss who had died of laughter.

**A/N :: Shikola Krasno ::**

**I will confess, this was entirely inspired by a dumb video I accidentally watched on FaceBook that was nothing but a montage of puppies and small dogs having trouble with stairs. The video manages to leave me in tears from laughing to hard every time that I watch it. **

**But after watching the pups tumble about, I came to wonder how Missile managed to scramble around like a maniac up and down stairs without issue. Not all small dogs have this problem with stairs, but plenty of dogs slip up every now and then (I've got a dog who loves jumping onto the couch, but every now and then he falls a little short. He'll just sit on the floor and whine when you laugh at him for it, and he won't stop until you help him up). So yeah. It's painfully adorable. That is all.**

**A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**Imagine waking up to an email from Shikola only to realize it's the link to a video of dogs falling down the stairs. Sigh. **

**I'll admit, now that I know Edgeworth has suede shoes, I want them to be blue. And for him to start singing like Elvis.**

* * *

><p><strong>Question: If Missile could get around so easily, why didn't he ever hang out with Larry or the others?<strong>

**Answer: **Well, Missile has a great nose for tracking, and when something smells. . .

**Scenario :: The Stench  
><strong>

After planning things out with Sissel and the nice lady, Missile was left at a new place. He immediately went running around, trying to figure out where he was. There were lots of little rooms with lots of little tables and plenty of big metal boxes in the halls and in the corners of the rooms. All in all the strange four story building was full of stuff, but still shockingly empty.

After running up and down the stairs quite a few times, Missile was disappointed to find no one to say hello to. He finally gave up at the first floor and laid down under a chair to wait for any strange sounds or smells to follow.

"EEEEUUUUUYYAAAAAAAAAAA!"

That was sound enough! Missile's little paws went scraping along the hard floor as he sprinted towards the source of the sound. As he got closer to the big door where all the shoes were, he slowed down and finally came to a complete stop just around the corner. The scent coming from the big door was unbearable. He started pawing at his nose as he tried to stop smelling it, but his nose just couldn't block it out.

"Ohhhh god whyyyy? Why is there no ground? What is that purple stuff? Why am I in a school? What's happening? Whaaaaaaa!"

"So this place is called 's-kewl'?" Missile muttered to himself.

"What? Who's there?" The person pointed light towards where Missile was and swept it around in search of the owner of the voice.

Missile decided that he'd just have to put up with the awful stench, and he steadied his nerves to step out and do what he did best, then he saw them. Three humans—all just too small to be considered fully grown to Missile—came drifting closer from the opposite end of the hallway._  
><em>

"HELLO!" Missile regretted saying that as soon as the humans looked at him. Their eyes looked unnatural and their faces hungry. The tall one with the glasses started to smile and he drifted towards Missile at an alarming speed. The little dog was scared stiff, but the person who smelled bad and had been panicking earlier poked his head into the hallway just in time for the tall human to notice him.

"Who said hellooooWHAAAAA!"

The three younger humans started to attack the smelly one, so Missile took the opportunity to use his ghost trick and hide himself in a nearby shoe (which was somehow still an improvement from the smell of the unlucky human."

He watched the three chase the smelly one away before coming out of the shoe. "Those must have been the ghosts that the lady talked about," Missile noted. The nice lady had warned them that there would be people who could be very dangerous in the strange world, as well as people who were good and just needed help. If Missile had to guess, the smelly man needed help. He made a solemn vow to try and help the man the next time he found him.

Finding him wasn't hard. His smell was so pungent that Missile could find him from miles away. The man had holed himself inside of one of the tall metal boxes that lined the hallway. "HELLO!" he yelped to get the man's attention.

The door to the box opened slowly and Missile sat down, ready to greet the man, but then the taller ghost dropped down from the ceiling and grabbed the man by the shoulders as he peaked out.

"GAAAAAH!"

Missile yipped and quickly projected himself into the broom that was in the box as the man ran off, once again chased by the three ghosts.

Again, Missile had failed to help the smelly guy. He walked sadly around the halls until the stench drew closer once more. "This time for sure!" he said happily as he followed it. He had yet to help anyone like he was supposed to, and the smelly man seemed to need all the help he could get! So he went scampering through the halls until he came upon the room where the smell was coming from. There was also a sound accompanying the smell this time. It seemed like it was supposed to be musical, but it just sounded like strange, dissonant noise to him (he couldn't know that it was a poor attempt at the song: "Chopsticks" on the piano).

Missile recalled Sissel's trick and put himself into the door to go through it. From the door, he could see the smelly man sitting at a large wooden thing, hitting buttons with his fingers that produced the awful noise. The man looked depressed and more than a little shaken up. "How did I even get here? And why do those guys keep attacking me? Boy I wish Edgey was here. He'd know what to do. . ."

Feeling ready to face him, Missile almost hopped out of the door to say hello, but then the three younger humans drifted right through it. Too scared to do anything else, Missile started barking in order to warn the smelly man, who looked up and saw the trio as they approached.

"Yiiiiii! Why does this keep happening to meeeeee!" After fighting them off by flailing around, the smelly man ran out of the room by throwing the door that Missile was in open and slamming it shut behind him.

Feeling bad and useless, Missile started whining. He just wanted to say hello, but the ghosts just kept attacking the smelly man. Maybe it was because he stunk too much? Whatever it was, Missile had failed to help him _and_ to say hello to him. What could he possibly do to help in a place like this?

Then he smelled her.

Her scent hadn't been there just a moment before, but now it was. It was a wonderful scent that he recognized from the parties that he would go to at the little master, Kamila's place.

It was the smell of burgers!

He looked around the room, but stayed inside of the door just in case. He saw a girl dressed in strange clothing sit up and mumble to herself. She looked around with a curious expression. She finally stood up and started to poke at the same buttons that the smelly man had, making various noises come out. When she grew tired of that, she slapped something that looked like a bunch of giant food dishes on strange stands and contraptions. It made a loud noise that scared Missile back into hiding. Then a new noise came from somewhere outside of the room. The girl ended up sliding the door open to go after the sound. She didn't slam the door like the smelly man did, and she didn't go through the door like the ghosts did. Missile started to really wonder if she was anything to be afraid of.

He finally stepped out of the door after the burger-girl turned the corner and went out of sight. He followed after her quietly, still trying to decide whether or not she needed any help.

"Hello?"

He watched the girl lift a strange object to her ear, and not a moment later an awful sound came out of it and made her pull it away from her hear. She had a conversation with the object before tucking it away. That's when Missile decided to—

RIIING RIIIING!

The object made a noise again and she put it back up to her ear. "Honestly, what's the point of calling when you don't wait for the other person to say anything back?" she complained as she paced around a bit. Still a bit jumpy from his encounters with the ghosts, Missile quickly hid himself in the closest door to avoid being seen by her. But, as she looked around, he noticed a familiar rock hanging off her neck.

It was just like the nice lady's!

To avoid scaring her, and to pull her away from the hall where the ghosts might attack again before he could get a word in, he got out of the door on the side with the small room and started barking to get her attention.

The girl stepped into the classroom and he sucked in as much air as his little lungs could hold before bellowing out. . .

"HELLO!"

**A/N :: Shikola Krasno ::**

**Ever wonder what Larry did _before_ locking himself in the bathroom? Apparently he just got chased all over the place. But in Missile's case, when something smelled it was always the Butz! Unfortunately, Missile wasn't exactly good at being helpful (as you may have noticed by the fact that he always disappeared whenever there was trouble), but he certainly made Maya happy! And don't even get me started on Edgeworth. . .**

**A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**Yum. Burger smell. (As an aside, how many burgers do you have to eat before you smell like them?)**

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><p><strong>Question: Missile seemed to play a key role in saving Maya from jumping off of the apartment complex. Would Phoenix have known to go up if it wasn't for him?<strong>

**Answer: **No. No, Phoenix wouldn't have. But Melody and I would have come up with a way to save her. It just wouldn't be right to save everybody then expect them to be okay after dropping Maya right in front of them. And we did have a bad habit of throwing Missile at all our problems. . .

**Scenario (this didn't actually happen, obviously. This is an alternate Missile ending!) :: THE MISSILE LAUNCHER!  
><strong>

After Cabanela mentioned bumping into a strangely dressed girl on the stairs, Edgeworth knew exactly who he meant. So, with Missile in hand and the rest of the gang following closely behind him, he hurried out of the Agency and went running down the stairs, two at a time, in order to find Maya as soon as possible.

He came bursting out of the door to the complex only to find little Pearl standing right outside. "Oh! Mister Edgeworth! I was just about to call up."

"Pearls? No, that's not right. . ." Edgeworth searched for Maya, but she was nowhere to be seen. Everyone else flooded outside and wound up just as confused as he was.

"YIP YIP YIP YIP!" Missile started struggling in Edgeworth's grasp, pointing his nose up towards the sky.

"What is it, boy?" Edgeworth asked, holding the little dog in front of him. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Missile kept wriggling as he tried to look up. "YIP YIP YIP!"

Pearl was the first one to look up with the dog, and her scream alarmed everybody. Edgeworth looked up and saw Maya at the edge of the roof, just about to step off.

It had been such an interesting night and his head was still swimming a little from all of his experiences in the Mnemonic Abyss, so he may not have been in his right mind when he yelled out, "Logic be damned!" and held Missile in his right hand while pointing his left straight at Maya. Then, with all of his strength, he threw the little dog like a football.

Everyone started screaming and it was hard to tell if they were screaming due to Maya's situation, or because Edgeworth had just thrown a living creature into the air. But, to their amazement, Missile flew straight and true and knocked Maya back just in time, making them both tumble back onto the roof.

"Come on. . ." Edgeworth looked up at the roof with concern. It started to occur to him that throwing a living creature may not have been the best idea on any day, but the little dog started yapping and, somehow, the panicked prosecutor knew that things worked out alright.

"YES!" He pumped his fists a few times, then completely caved into the random urges and logical fallacies and broke out into a sort of touchdown dance, fully equipped with the running man, the shopping cart, and various other horrible dance moves that no one ever wanted to see the renowned prosecutor he was finally finished with his shameless display, he went running back into the apartment complex. At the moment, he couldn't care less what the others thought of him. With Missile's help, he had somehow managed to save the day.

The rest of the gang stood at the door to the complex, completely stunned.

"Did he just?" Athena muttered.

"Yep," Apollo replied.

"And he just?"

"Uh huh."

"But that's just. . ."

Edgeworth poked his head over the edge of the rooftop and showed Missile off to the world like the dog was the prince of the jungle being presented to his loyal, animal subjects. It was such a dramatic scene that one might have heard an African chorus if life came with such musical accompaniment. Finally, with all restraints gone after a night of complete insanity, he started yelling, "MISSILE LAUNCHER REIGNS VICTORIOUS!"

Phoenix slapped his forehead and muttered, "I am going to need sooo much therapy to get that image out of my head." Everyone mumbled in agreement.

**A/N :: Shikola Krasno ::**

**Mix college stress, lack of sleep, and too much caffeine and what do you get?**

**THE MISSILE LAUNCHER!**

**Of all the stupid ideas that we came up with, this one is by far Melody's and my favorite.**

**The issue that led to this was actually rescuing Maya. Originally, the way that my chapter was written, there was no time between Pearl's scream and Maya's fall. That posed a serious problem for Melody, however, who had the magical task of saving her. Instead of just changing my chapter at first, for some reason we decided to come up with ridiculous ways to save her.**

**I won't mention the other ways yet in case Melody goes through with those alternate endings, but my addition to the dumb rescues was THE MISSILE LAUNCHER! The idea was pretty much that someone would launch Missile at Maya and BOOM! Safe and sound! Now it's just fun to say and fun to think about. I don't know if anybody will be quite as amused with this as we are, but it's always nice to see Edgeworth crack, so just deal with it.**

**MISSILE LAUNCHEEEEEEER!**

**A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**I might have to write some of those various endings, but the Missile Launcher will always be my favorite. Missile saves the day, and I can just see Edgeworth's touchdown dance in my head.**

* * *

><p><strong>Final AN :: Shikola Krasno ::  
><strong>

**O MY GOD I'm so sorry for how long it's been since we've posted anything! Motivations are all over the place, and while I'd like to say that Melody and I are swamped up to our necks in school work, work, or whatever, the fact is that we still write quite a bit of randomness whenever we get the chance, so the truth is that we're just too distracted from these particular stories. And what's worse, the first thing we're going to publish in a while is my Fatal Turnabout crack chapters! So, so sorry.**

**In other news, though, I actually wrote crack chapters! Never saw that coming, right? I mean, I killed EVERYBODY (except maybe Godot?) and I did NOT make it easy on them. Truth is: the only character that's really holy enough for me to not be able to kill is Missile—****which is funny since he dies in his own game (SPOILERS! But if you read this then you may have figured that out already). There's something that Melody knows better than anyone: if I'm given the choice between human saving a human or a dog, I will choose dog.**

**Sadly, because I'm a Missile hog, he has been passed on to Melody for a while (check out our Fatal Frame/Sailor Moon cross, and yes, Missile is still around). I won't be able to use him in a story until we reach Fatal Frame 3, which will be quite a while, plus I still need to actually write out more of Dangan Ronpa/Zero Escape (seriously, we have been slacking off). Missile will not (as we know of yet) be making any appearances in the latter story. So yeah, my Missile privileges have been revoked, or at least reduced to Missile crack.**

**IF YOU COME UP WITH ANY OTHER MISSILE RELATED QUESTIONS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK US THEM! I only stopped writing them because I wasn't sure what else to add, but I'm always game for a Missile related challenge. If you just want to know about Missile in general, I will say it again: go check out Ghost Trick and you'll understand our obsession.**

**And with that I say sorry for the 50th time, and I hope you'll still put up with us!**

**Final A/N :: Melody Canta ::**

**Haha, now that we're posting again, I'm now getting swamped in schoolwork. I went back to the USA for Christmas, and my motivation kind of tanked from there. Plus, as Shikola said, we've been writing random little things for each other, mostly Persona-related, since Persona Q was released and we're kind of giant Persona nerds (PERSONAAAAAAA!). Plus, I've now got my own obligations, including a brand new Let's Play! channel (if you want to watch me play through Persona 3 Portable, come watch!) and a cosplay group, so needless to say, I'm tired. **

**I'm still hogging Missile, so if you're not reading Luna Obscura, now is the time to do so! It's only going to get darker from there, I promise. I've got the next chapter about a quarter of the way done, and once I finish editing the video for my LP, that's next on my list of things to write.**

**In the meantime, sorry, and we'll try to post more soon!**


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